English speaking writer-director Antoine Barraud comes on like a film buff, saying he started reworking KRAMER vs KRAMER but the film shifted to The CAT PEOPLE & VERTIGO. Closer to the mark is the forties Bette Davis A DOUBLE LIFE which was re-tooled for Dolores de Rio as LA OTRA and picked up again by Davis as DEAD RINGERS with the left over Kramer V. Kramer elements occasionally visible here.
The opening sets the tone with Virginie Efira center of attention in an up market store choosing which outfit to spend her mum's cash gift on - torn between the one the money will cover and a super chic fishnet number. She collapses and staggers off. It really takes more clues to place the Efira we then see navigating between two families, one with well off music world husband Bruno Salomone who squires her to Valérie Donzelli recitals with their two boys and one with rugged Quim Gutiérrez whose daughter calls her "Mummy" while he takes on the odd jobs she finds him.
The arrangement is bound to come ungummed and that's what happens with people she met as one character showing up at the other lot's parties, a traffic cop running her in for a fake I. D. and Virginie's mum Jacqueline Bisset (!) and dad François Rostain on a visit that confuses them and ends with them flying her back to Salomone. We knew it was going to end in tears.
This one is long, complex and demanding and Efira is center screen for most of it. The two leading men are shadowed and attention shifts to the kids, the parents and shady forger Nadav Lapid when they come on. The technical work is polished and we can see a lot of money on the screen.
A few years back Efira was endearing when she appeared with Benoît Poelvoorde in FAMILLE A LOUER and Le GRAND BAIN but now carrying big movies herself, she is stretched.
The opening sets the tone with Virginie Efira center of attention in an up market store choosing which outfit to spend her mum's cash gift on - torn between the one the money will cover and a super chic fishnet number. She collapses and staggers off. It really takes more clues to place the Efira we then see navigating between two families, one with well off music world husband Bruno Salomone who squires her to Valérie Donzelli recitals with their two boys and one with rugged Quim Gutiérrez whose daughter calls her "Mummy" while he takes on the odd jobs she finds him.
The arrangement is bound to come ungummed and that's what happens with people she met as one character showing up at the other lot's parties, a traffic cop running her in for a fake I. D. and Virginie's mum Jacqueline Bisset (!) and dad François Rostain on a visit that confuses them and ends with them flying her back to Salomone. We knew it was going to end in tears.
This one is long, complex and demanding and Efira is center screen for most of it. The two leading men are shadowed and attention shifts to the kids, the parents and shady forger Nadav Lapid when they come on. The technical work is polished and we can see a lot of money on the screen.
A few years back Efira was endearing when she appeared with Benoît Poelvoorde in FAMILLE A LOUER and Le GRAND BAIN but now carrying big movies herself, she is stretched.