This movie is subtle, well made and undoubtedly good for your soul, like broccoli. However, like broccoli, it can be a bit too bland and boring. You get to watch a child's life through the child's eyes. Her trials are not major and she handles them without major drama. The lead is a child actress Nina Kervel-Bey. Her part is quite unusual. She is not adorable or endearing. She is not a brat. She is not a ninny. She is not a waif. She is intelligent, but not freakily precocious. She is admirably stubborn and independent. Just as in real life, the adults don't notice how aware she is of all that is going on and talk down to her. She listens in all the time on adult conversations. I recall as a preschooler sitting on the floor while adults had conversations that I was sure they did not want me to hear. As long as I did not move, it seemed for them I did not exist or that they presumed I was incapable of understanding what they were saying. Films and books nearly always underestimate children. It is as if the authors can't remember what it was like, and go for a Disneyfied haze over the lens making children into happy idiots. This movie does not make that error. Steffano Accorsi plays the father. He was also in one of my favourite movies of all time My Secret Life/Ignorant Fairies where he plays a similar warm gentle character.
Review of La faute à Fidel!
