Film Review — Petite Maman
A spare, poignant, beguiling tale of childhood from the brilliant Céline Sciamma, touching on friendship, loneliness, loss, and more.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire director Céline Sciamma scores another bullseye with Petite Maman, a deceptively simple yet utterly beautiful magical realist gem. At a mere 72 minutes, the film is spare and stripped down, without an ounce of fat on its cinematic bones. Yet Petite Maman is a fillet mignon of poignancy, exploring themes of childhood innocence, imagination, creativity, friendship, loneliness, insecurity, grief, and catharsis with more depth and subtlety than many films twice the length, and hundreds of times the budget.
It is best to go into this film with as little knowledge of the plot as possible. Suffice to say, it concerns young Nelly (Josephine Sanz), who has just lost her beloved grandmother. Nelly’s mother (Nina Meurisse) sinks deeper into her grief when she and her husband (Stephan Varupenne) have to spend a few days in her mother’s home clearing away her possessions, with Nelly in tow. Nelly is eventually left alone with her father when it all becomes too much for her mother to bear. Exploring the nearby woods, she makes friends with an enigmatic girl about her age called Marion (Gabrielle Sanz). They immediately bond and form a close friendship.
To say any more risks spoilers, but the film depicts the rituals of childhood with crystalline authenticity. The way children ask one another “What’s your name?” and “How old are you?” before becoming trusted friends is evocatively depicted. Many viewers will doubtless be reminded of halcyon childhood days building dens in the woods, having sleepovers, playing games, telling one another secrets, eating pancakes, and play-acting.
Regarding the latter, these plays provide important subtext, deftly but unobtrusively weaving in bittersweet metaphors concerning the film’s main themes. The supernatural element is rightly glossed over, portrayed without special effects or fuss of any kind, with a slight ambiguity. Performances are superb, especially from the winning young leads, but Stephan Varupenne also deserves a special shout. In an era when fatherhood is often depicted with relentless negativity, his interactions with Josephine Sanz are a breath of fresh air.
Those looking for action and thrills would be better served elsewhere. Petite Maman is gentle and unhurried, featuring gorgeous autumnal cinematography courtesy of Spencer lenser Claire Mathon. The quiet, naturalistic, observational style and pacing contains not one moment of intrusive melodramatics, either in Sciamma’s direction or screenplay. There isn’t a CGI pixel in sight, and scarcely any music score to break the quiet, reflective tone (though Jean-Baptiste de Laubier’s compositions are a fine complement to the drama). Nor is there a single false note throughout. Petite Maman is captivating and beguiling from start to finish — suitable for all ages, incidentally — and one of the finest films of the year.
This article was originally published at Simon Dillon Books. For more about me and my writing on Medium, please click here. For a list of my published novels and other works, please click here.