I watched this on Chai Flicks (aka Netflix with Jewish themed movies and Israeli ones). Her religion and ethnicity really was irrelevant to the movie. Couldn't figure out if Phillipe was supposed to be but I believe he wasn't.
Phillipe to me is one of the most disgusting villains I have ever seen in any movie. I just expected him to be a snobbish, rich piece of you know what but he's even worse. The abuse to me was not needed and made the movie much more intense than it needed to be. To make things more complex, the daughter Chantel is nothing like the mother Rachel and is exactly like her father in looks and personality. How Rachel was able to live with a reminder of him is beyond me.
Brings me to Rachel. I don't think she was unlikable at all, rather naive. To Phillipe's defense all signs of him being a jerk were there from the beginning. He literally tells her he won't marry her throughout the movie and adds that if she were rich, it could be different (wtf?). Rachel knowingly allows him to have him to send his "seed" inside her. He sees her and Chantel every now and then for essentially a romp in the hay with Rachel mainly to get her off his back. He never financially helps out until he establishes a regular relationship with Chantel when she is a teenager. The sexual abuse imo came out of nowhere. They made him go from being a pig to being a pervert and a creep. Rachel had no idea what was going on until her daughter's much older "lover" tells her to not allow her to see Phillipe due to the ongoing abuse. Phillipe writes her a letter blaming Chantel for him not being able to see her anymore and that he thought she was different (classic narcissist to shame the victim) Chantel seems to have stopped seeing him until he is much older and when she is an adult. The only really unlikable thing about Rachel is that when she realizes that there has been abuse, she doesn't reach out to call the police as well as to warn Phillipe's wife who he has a child with.
Chantel spends years giving her mother the cold shoulder and on and off stops communicating with her. While a teenager, Rachel just thought Chantel was acting out as a teen and resented how her mother was working class and not as cultured as her father. Chantel clearly is messed up throughout the movie once her father reappears regularly in her life. The girl doesn't understand why her mother continues to sleep with him, gets abused by him, and at 14 or 15 has a relationship with a man who is in his 20s and a friend of Rachel's calling him a lover and not a boyfriend. As an adult she appears to be in a loveless relationship and has a child contemplating leaving him.
It's a depressing movie from start to finish.
Phillipe to me is one of the most disgusting villains I have ever seen in any movie. I just expected him to be a snobbish, rich piece of you know what but he's even worse. The abuse to me was not needed and made the movie much more intense than it needed to be. To make things more complex, the daughter Chantel is nothing like the mother Rachel and is exactly like her father in looks and personality. How Rachel was able to live with a reminder of him is beyond me.
Brings me to Rachel. I don't think she was unlikable at all, rather naive. To Phillipe's defense all signs of him being a jerk were there from the beginning. He literally tells her he won't marry her throughout the movie and adds that if she were rich, it could be different (wtf?). Rachel knowingly allows him to have him to send his "seed" inside her. He sees her and Chantel every now and then for essentially a romp in the hay with Rachel mainly to get her off his back. He never financially helps out until he establishes a regular relationship with Chantel when she is a teenager. The sexual abuse imo came out of nowhere. They made him go from being a pig to being a pervert and a creep. Rachel had no idea what was going on until her daughter's much older "lover" tells her to not allow her to see Phillipe due to the ongoing abuse. Phillipe writes her a letter blaming Chantel for him not being able to see her anymore and that he thought she was different (classic narcissist to shame the victim) Chantel seems to have stopped seeing him until he is much older and when she is an adult. The only really unlikable thing about Rachel is that when she realizes that there has been abuse, she doesn't reach out to call the police as well as to warn Phillipe's wife who he has a child with.
Chantel spends years giving her mother the cold shoulder and on and off stops communicating with her. While a teenager, Rachel just thought Chantel was acting out as a teen and resented how her mother was working class and not as cultured as her father. Chantel clearly is messed up throughout the movie once her father reappears regularly in her life. The girl doesn't understand why her mother continues to sleep with him, gets abused by him, and at 14 or 15 has a relationship with a man who is in his 20s and a friend of Rachel's calling him a lover and not a boyfriend. As an adult she appears to be in a loveless relationship and has a child contemplating leaving him.
It's a depressing movie from start to finish.