Bienvenue parmi nous (2012)
Directed by Jean Becker

Film Review

The meaning of life, the universe and everything...  This seems to be the overarching theme to the otherwise pretty hard to categorise oeuvre of French film director Jean Becker (the son of the great cineaste Jacques Becker, whose output was even more eclectic).  Becker's early films are an odd mix of popular comedies (Échappement libre, Tendre voyou) and thrillers (Un nommé La Rocca, L'Été meurtrier).  It was only after his 1999 hit Les Enfants du marais that a pattern begins to emerge, as the director acquired an increasing affinity with individuals struggling to find a meaning for their existence.  This is very much the theme of Jean Becker's latest film, an understated little drama about a disillusioned artist who, locked in a downward spiral of depression, experiences a spiritual rebirth when his path crosses that of a stray teenage girl who is suffering a similar crisis of identity. 

Bienvenue parmi nous (a.k.a. Welcome Aboard) is based on a novel of the same title by the popular French author Éric Holder, first published in 1998.  This is not the first of Holder's novels to be adapted for the cinema - it is preceded by Mademoiselle Chambon (2009) and L'Homme de chevet (2009), directed respectively by Stéphane Brizé and Alain Monne.  On the face of it, there seems to be a high degree of overlap between Bienvenue parmi nous and some of Becker's previous films.  As in Dialogue avec mon jardinier (2007), the central character (Taillandier) is an artist who is impelled to start a new life to regain his creative inspiration and zest for living.  Taillandier also resembles the main character in Deux jours à tuer (2008), who performs a similar disappearing act, walking away from his job and his family for no apparent reason.  The mutually beneficial relationship that develops between Taillandier and the teenager Marylou has much in common with that featured in Élisa (1995), and is handled with as much tenderness and irony.  Whilst Bienvenue parmi nous navigates some very familiar waters, it somehow feels different to most of Becker's recent films.  It is a more introspective, more melancholic piece, and whilst it is unlikely to win many awards for originality (critical reaction to the film has so far been pretty damning), it has no difficulty holding our attention - although most of the credit for this should go not to Becker, but to his two lead actors.

If the film excels anywhere it is in the central performance from Patrick Chesnais, whose authentic portrayal of a man rediscovering the joys of living after a brief flirtation with suicide is simply spellbinding.  It is not hard to see why Chesnais is the darling of auteur filmmakers - he combines an unstarry, everyman ordinariness with a rare ability to project his characters' deeper feelings straight into the hearts of his audience, apparently without any physical effort.  Although he is now in his mid-60s, Chesnais still has that unerring knack of grabbing our attention and compelling us to empathise with him, in whatever role he appears.  Bienvenue parmi nous is by no means an unqualified masterpiece, but the heartrending performance that Chesnais gives in it is unquestionably one of his best, one of exceptional truth and intensity.

Jeanne Lambert may not have Patrick Chesnais's experience but she convinces us she is a comparable talent in this, her debut feature, playing the troubled adolescent to Chesnais's troubled sexagenarian.  Like her older co-star, Lambert reveals far more in her performance than is evident on the surface, which is perhaps surprising when you consider that her previous acting experience is in theatre.  The chemistry between the two lead actors is spot on, and one of the most magical aspects of the film is the ease with which their characters manage to bridge the generational gap and form a meaningful emotional bond.  It's a pity that all of the secondary characters are far less well-developed and less convincingly played, despite the casting of such illustrious names as Miou-Miou and Jacques Weber.  We can only groan as the other actors drag themselves laboriously through a minefield of well-worn clichés, but Chesnais and Lambert are in a class of their own and have no difficulty rendering their characters convincing and likeable, salvaging the film as they do so.

The first part of the film is undoubtedly where it is strongest, having a focus and intensity that are rapidly dissipated in the film's second half.  Here, the spotlight is on Patrick Chesnais, harrowingly convincing as a man who has lost his reason for living and sees nothing but emptiness around him.  For a director who has a reputation for looking on the bright side of life, Chesnais's early scenes in the film have an astonishingly dark hue and, for a while, it looks as if Jean Becker is going to take us down a whole new avenue.  Unfortunately, first impressions can be very deceptive, and after a tentative walk on the wild side, Becker yanks us back onto safer, more familiar ground, throwing up a golden opportunity to try something different as he does so.  Before we know it, the film has started to resemble an American soap-style road movie from the 1990s, and surprises from this point on are desperately few and far between.  Fortunately, whilst Becker struggles and fails to breathe new life into his hackneyed plot, he can rely on his two lead actors to bail him out.  Overall, Bienvenue parmi nous is disappointingly tame and predictable, but we can easily forgive this on account of its charm and the impressive duo formed by Patrick Chesnais, a great actor at the height of his powers, and Jeanne Lambert, a debutante French film star in the making.

Film Synopsis

Taillandier, a sixty-year-old painter of some renown, has suddenly lost his creative urge.   In a fit of depression, and without offering the slightest explanation to his family, he leaves his home and embarks on a long and seemingly aimless journey.  Along the way, he encounters a stray teenager, Marylou, who has been rejected by her mother.   Taillandier and Marylou would seem to have nothing in common but they form a mutual attachment.  They finally end up sharing a house together, as father and daughter, and both discover a new lease of life...