Ombline (2012)
Directed by Stéphane Cazes

Film Review

Stéphane Cazes makes a promising directorial debut with this involving prison drama about a young woman coping with the traumas of motherhood in the most inhospitable of circumstances.  Mélanie Thierry turns in her finest performance to date, utterly convincing as a hard-bitten young tearaway who is suddenly forced to change her ways when she learns she is pregnant.  The stark reality of Thierry's portrayal of a complex woman who is gradually transformed by the experience of maternity is reinforced by film's austerely naturalistic design (it helps that the film was shot in a real prison), but undermined slightly by some obvious lapses in the screenwriting and mise-en-scène.

Cazes's inexperience as a writer and director manifests itself in the overladen narrative, which attempts to cram too many themes into too small a space, often resorting to the irritating shorthand of cliché and crude Biblical allusions.  There is little to fault in the film's first half, which depicts the mother's pregnancy and awkward attempts to rear her newborn with understated compassion and eloquence.  Caze confidently straddles the gap between social realism and melodrama and crafts an original piece of drama that has its own poetry and charm.  Where the film falls down is in its second half, which takes us into the more familiar territory of a prison detainee struggling to become a reformed character, in an environment that makes reform virtually impossible.

Having been forced to give up her child, the heroine must now prove that she is fit to be a mother by making herself out to be the model prisoner.  It is at this point that Caze begins to unload his big sack of clichés and nudge his film ever closer to cosy TV-style melodrama (an impression that is reinforced by the film's overly intrusive score).  What prevents the film from tumbling into the precipice of derative schmaltz is the welcome presence of Corinne Masiero, who very nearly steals the show from Mélanie Thierry with her totally riveting portrayal of a murderous drug addict.  Masiero is one of the great revelations of French cinema in 2012, have distinguished herself in two of the year's most acclaimed films:  Cyril Mennegun's Louise Wimmer (2012) and Jacques Audiard's De rouille et d'os (2012).

Ombline has many of the failings you would expect to find in a first feature from a young filmmaker, but what redeems it is the commitment and sincerity that its director and his lead actors invest in it.  Cazes is not concerned with making a political point (although the film does offer a pretty powerful indictment of how today's prison regime treats young mothers); instead he focuses on the human drama and tells a moving story of renewal and redemption in the most extraordinary of circumstances.  Despite its obvious shortcomings, Ombline is a film that is remarkably easy to engage with, one that offers a powerful tribute to the courage and resilience of women.  Stéphane Cazes is definitely a name to watch out for.

Film Synopsis

After assaulting a police officer, Ombline finds herself in prison, serving a three year stretch.  She is twenty and, with no one to offer her comfort or support, she faces the future without any hope that things will improve for her.  Then she learns that she is two months pregnant.  This is just what she needed to get her out of the abyss of self-pitying despair into which she has fallen.  Now she has something to live for - a little boy or girl she can raise on her own.  Unfortunately, as the law stands she is only entitled to keep the newborn child for the first year and half of its life.  After this time, it must be given up to the state and placed with a foster family.

The prospect of losing her darling infant is not one that Ombline can accept, and she is determined to keep custody of it when she comes out of prison and resumes her normal life.  The experience of motherhood is about to profoundly change the young woman, and for the better.  She will do whatever it takes to convince the authorities that she will make a good mother.  Her child is a prize that no one will be able to take away from her...