Review of French Film Petite Maman: When’s the Last Time You Felt Changed On an Emotional-Cellular Level While Watching a Film?
A beautiful, psychic, and supernatural journey of personal autonomy through the emotionality of mother-daughter relationships
*There are spoilers, both here, and in the YouTube trailer at the end.
It’s been years since a film had me spellbound from start to finish: Petite Maman did just that. It’s the type of film that offers patrons their own emotional transformation while eating Milk Duds and popcorn.
I left the theatre soul-changed — that’s not an exaggeration.
Indy French Film Petite Maman (Little Mom), directed by Céline Sciamma was released in 2021. This quaint French film packs a powerful in-the-feels flawless delivery of a mother-daughter bond.
The crux of the story is the relationship between 8-year-old Nelly and her mom, Marion, after the passing of Nelly’s grandmother and Marion’s mom. They go to clean out Marion’s childhood home in the beautiful, enticing, evocative woodland of her youth. There, Nelly befriends a girl her age, who she soon discovers is her mom at her age.
Petite Maman follows a short period of time in which a grieving family deals with love, life, and loss. The vehicle to discuss these feelings is a supernatural element. In the woods, young Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) meets her mother, Marion played by Gabrielle Sanz (Marion, when she was her age.) In the following sleepy and magical days, they form a deep friendship and bond.
Nelly’s father (Stéphane Varupenne) is an excellent supporting actor who reveals he has his own family trauma in a touching breakfast scene between father and daughter.
The two gracefully try to their relationships with each other and ultimately, their own inner worlds.
When Simon Dillon, calls Petite Maman director Céline Sciamma “brilliant,” well, based on my inaugural viewing of her work, he’s right.
After purchasing my popcorn, Milk Duds, and bottled water, I entered the small viewing room. A woman across the way chatted me up about lighter films and her hesitation at giving Petite Maman a try. I assured her of the high recommendation from my UK film critic friend.
I’m fairly sure this movie wasn’t for her as she practically fled when the credits rolled while I sat with my tear-streaked face, hand on heart, wondering how to exit the theatre without looking a complete mess.
Be warned: this movie is like watching a memoir. If you prefer light, humorous movies, this probably isn’t for you.
But, everyone who enjoys a pastoral stroll through quiet emotional turmoil will surely love Petite Maman as much as Simon and I did.
Simon is usually right on pairing my taste to media preferences, however, I didn’t foresee leaving Petite Maman with a tear-stained face, and a heart having undergone much-needed catharsis.
It’s supernatural. Or psychic. Or metaphysical. Sciamma leaves the decision up to you. The film crawls at a delightfully slow pace. A pace that allows the space for grief and joy, for processing emotions and the meaningful place our loved ones hold in our hearts.
It’s an unusually meditative experience for cinema-goers.
Petite Maman doesn’t sugarcoat “family.” The study is narrow, of the small inner workings of four people within the family, most pointedly of Nelly and her mother, Marion.
It takes place mainly in the magical, fantastical fairyland feeling woods outside of the mom’s childhood home.
It is here that the young Nelly gets a glimpse into her mother’s origins and how she struggles, hopes, and loves.
To paraphrase a line I didn’t know until I needed to hear, spoken by young Marion to her daughter, is that she is not responsible for her mom’s sadness. The relationship between moms and daughters can be complicated and I think there is sometimes a sense of responsibility from daughters for how our moms feel.
There is something profoundly tender in portraying a child as a child in relationship with her mother, also as a child.
“You didn’t invent my sadness.” I believe that’s the line accurately recorded by yours truly directly after the show, when I immediately messaged the Master of the Dillon Empire to inform him he was right: Petite Maman is a very Aimée movie, but what does that mean?
To find out, I went to the source: “Petite Maman is an Aimee movie in the sense that it has the warm-hearted, meditative, emotionally literate, bittersweet, empowering sensibilities of her finest personal essays.”
Sheesh, Simon, I wasn’t fishing for a compliment, but I’m taking this as such.
To point, Simon somehow nailed what makes me tick in my personal writing: emotion, bittersweet with a touch of nostalgia, empowerment, kindness, contemplation and growth. It’s an aside, but I appreciate the window into my own creative prowess. I find that art often inspires me to be more creative. Petite Maman is a work of art that does just that for me. I hope at least some of my writing does the same for other creatives.
The line releases the daughter from the prison of believing she has the power to control how her mom (or anyone for that matter) feels.
If you can catch it on the big screen, that’s what I recommend, as the forest scenes are fantastically beautifully and won’t have quite the impact on streaming. That said, you can catch Petite Maman on Prime if you wish.
It’s a profound work of art. One that should win multiple awards. It’s up for a BAFTA (Best Film In the Non-English Language) already.
