A late addition to the main competition line-up in Cannes, writer-director Léonor Serraille’s second feature is an expansive follow-up to her lusty, lively, freewheeling Jeune Femme (Montparnasse Bienvenüe), which won the festival’s Camera d’Or for best debut five years ago. Partly inspired by the back story of Serraille’s life partner, but painted on a broad enough emotional canvas to feel universal, Mother and Son chronicles three decades in the lives of a West African mother and her two sons living in northern France.
As a multi-decade-spanning triple character study, and evolving commentary on the immigrant experience in contemporary Europe, Mother and Son is commendably ambitious for a sophomore feature. But it is also baggy and unfocussed, never quite achieving the novelistic richness and emotional heft it requires to sweep its sprawling plot along. Fine performances and tender observations on fractious sibling dynamics are solid selling points (the more direct French title translates as “a little brother”) but Serraille’s listless, episodic family drama lacks the verve and swagger of her debut.
Set in 1989, the opening chapter finds Rose (Annabelle Lengronne) arriving in France from Ivory Coast to make a new life in Paris with her young sons Jean (Sidy Fofana) and Ernest (Milan Doucansi). When friends try to pair off Rose with fellow West African émigré Jules César (Jean-Christophe Folly), she politely asserts her independent spirit: “I choose my men myself,” she proclaims, “I don’t belong to anyone.” And so she proves, taking time out from her lowly hotel job for casual affairs, unsuitable boyfriends and even a wild orgy in a chateau owned by her millionaire libertine boss. Meanwhile, Rose presses a hard-nosed immigrant survival creed on her sons: excel at school, work hard and never cry in public.
Jumping forward several years, the film’s mid-section finds the trio now living in the city of Rouen, with Rose firmly installed as long-term secret mistress of a married man. This furtive half-life inevitably creates friction, with older teenager Jean (Stéphane Bak) slowly veering off the rails from model student to angry, resentful, sexually frustrated adolescent. When tensions reach boiling point, Rose resorts to extreme measures by sending Jean back to stay with relatives in Ivory Coast, leaving behind a calmer but sadder, smaller family unit. Meanwhile, older Ernest (Kenzo Sambin) comes of age, embracing a fully French identity by seducing girls in rustic meadows using the time-honoured method of reading them juicy lines of poetry and philosophy. Mais oui, évidemment.
A third chapter, set more of less present day, finds a grown-up Ernest (Ahmed Sylla) teaching philosophy in college, now a fully fledged member of the Parisian bourgeois intelligentsia but still scarred by his broken family history, and still subject to random racist street checks by gendarmes. Out of the blue, he finds himself sharing a fraught reunion with Rose and musing ruefully on his long estrangement from Jean. Ostensibly the poignant dramatic climax, this shorter coda feels oddly affectless, a functional tying up of loose ends rather than a grand convergence of emotional themes.
The performances here are generally excellent, especially the magnetic Lengronne as the spirited Rose, who ages convincingly across three decades. The younger child actors are also charming, natural, and compellingly watchable. There are flashes of visual poetry, plus a rich soundtrack that blends bouncy Europop with genteel piano music, sometimes cleverly overlaid with African instrumentation. Mother and Son is persuasive proof that Serallie’s early success was no fluke, but just not great enough to take her to the next level.
Director, screenwriter: Léonor Serraille
Cast: Annabelle Lengronne, Stéphane Bak, Kenzo Sambin, Ahmed Sylla, Sidy Fofana, Audrey Kouakou, Thibaut Evrard, Étienne Minoungou, Jean-Christophe Folly, Majd Mastroura, Pascal Rénéric
Producer: Sandra da Fonseca
Cinematography: Hélène Louvart
Editing: Clémence Carré
Production company: Blue Monday Productions (France), France3 Cinema (France)
World sales: MK2
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition)
In French
116 minutes
