Film Review
In his 2009 film
Welcome, director Philippe
Lioret stirred our consciences with a sobering reflection on the
inhumane way in which illegal immigrants are treated when they turn up
in our countries, unwanted and unable to fend for themselves. For
his follow-up feature, he makes a valiant attempt to tackle a social
theme of comparable import: the cynical exploitation of indebted
families and individuals by unscrupulous loan companies. The
subject is certainly a worthy one, and you wonder how it is that, given
how widespread the problem of personal debt has become in recent years,
so few film directors have been minded to tackle the subject. The
problem is that social realism is not Lioret's strongest suit and his
penchant for lachrymose melodrama prevents him from delivering much
more than a lightweight handling of a very serious social malaise.
Loosely based on
D'autres vies que
la mienne, a critically acclaimed novel by Emmanuel
Carrère,
Toutes nos envies
is more of an old-fashioned weepy than a full-bodied social realist
drama. The story revolves around a good-natured lawyer Claire
(Marie Gillain) who, on discovering she has an untreatable brain tumour, decides to
dedicate what little time she has left to helping unfortunates who have
got themselves massively into debt (by which I mean hard-up single mums
and such like, not the large banks or national governments, who can
patently look after themselves, by fleecing the tax payer). As
luck would have it, Claire meets another lawyer named Stéphane
(Vincent Lindon) and manages to win him round to her way of
thinking. As they succumb to a rather touching platonic love
affair, this enterprising duo leave their humdrum lives behind them and
embark on a crusade to change the world. The homespun plot
is no more incredible than that of
Welcome
but whereas that latter film had a ring of plausibility about it
(thanks to the extraordinarily truthful performances of the two lead
actors), this one just feels tacky and contrived.
It is not hard to see that Claire's brain tumour is intended to serve
as a crude metaphor for the unethical credit business, a morally bogus
industry which blights our society like a cancerous scourge and brings
no end of misery to those who get caught up in its rapacious
talons. Unfortunately, if Lioret had wanted to divert our
attention away from the social issues that his film addresses, he could
not do it more effectively than by giving his main protagonist a
terrible terminal illness. Our sympathies are immediately divided
between his heroine, who must not only come to terms with her own
mortality but also with the effect her illness will have on those
nearest to her, and the noble cause she is fighting for. Both
areas would test the resources of any screenwriter and filmmaker, and
so it is hardly surprising that they each get little more than the most
superficial treatment in this film.
Toutes nos envies is an engaging
and at times deeply moving piece of film drama, its shortcomings at
least partly redeemed by the captivating performances from Gillain and
Lindon, but it has nothing like the raw authenticity and devastating
emotional power of
Welcome,
Lioret's finest film to date.
© James Travers 2012
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Film Synopsis
Claire and Stéphane are two Lyon-based lawyers who could hardly
be more different. She is young and enthusiastic, committed to
helping those unfortunates who find themselves in debt. He is
older, wiser, but disillusioned with his work and his life. Under
Claire's influence, Stéphane discovers a new lease of life and
at last finds a cause that is worth fighting for...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.