Maman a tort (2016)
Directed by Marc Fitoussi

Film Review

For his fifth feature, director Marc Fitoussi returns to the mother-daughter relationship which he previously explored with warmth and surprising insight in his film Copacabana (2010).  In Maman a tort, a young teenage girl (Jeanne Jestin, impressive in her first leading film role) discovers a new side to her mother (Emilie Dequenne, who featured in the director's earlier La Vie d'artiste) and has her illusions about adult life well and truly shattered by what she is forced to witness in the modern workplace.  In the hands of other directors - such as the Dardenne brothers - this could have been a pretty uncompromising social drama, but Fitoussi's gentler approach softens it and the result is an engaging light comedy pebble-dashed with moments of grimness.

If the plot feels a little familiar that's probably because it has much in common with Laurent Cantet's Ressources humaines (1999), in which an idealistic son comes into conflict with his father through the latter's ill-treatment of his employees.  Fitoussi's film is nowhere near as bleak and intense as Cantet's sombre drama but it handles similar themes in a way that has just as much of a resonance, prompting us to reflect on why it is acceptable to treat people so badly in the workplace when such behaviour would never be tolerated within the family or even between strangers.  Maman a tort suffers a little from a free-flowing narrative that tries to include too many digressions that lead nowhere and merely feel like padding, but captivating performances from the capable two lead actors just about make up for an uneven script and Fitoussi's less than inspired mise-en-scène.

Film Synopsis

Anouk is a 14-year-old girl who has a surprise in store for her when she is allowed to shadow her mother Cyrielle for a few days in her work with an insurance company.  Cyrielle becomes a completely different person when she enters the workplace, and Anouk barely recognises her.  She is brusque and insensitive when she deals with others, even people who are clearly desperate for any help she can give them.  Anouk cannot believe how her mother treats a poor young mother who is facing eviction from her home after getting into debt.  Is this really what the adult world is like - cold, cowardly and uncaring...?