Review: 'Petite Maman' is a deftly told and quietly moving story of the bonds between mothers and daughters
French filmmaker Céline Sciamma makes a small, perfect gem with “Petite Maman,” a quiet story of a little girl finding connection with her mother — a movie that’s as thematically different and emotionally moving as her torrid period romance, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”
This spartan drama centers on Nelly (played by Joséphine Sanz), an 8-year-old girl who’s grandmother has just died. Sciamma, as writer and director, begins with Nelly saying goodbye to the other ladies she’s met in her grandmother’s nursing home. Then she rides along with her mom (Nina Meurisse) and dad (Stéphane Varupenne) to the house where Grandma lived — the house in which Nelly’s mother experienced her childhood.
While exploring the woods behind the house, Nelly finds a hut made out of tree branches — similar to the one her mother said she built when she was a child. Nelly also finds a little girl, about her age (and played by Joséphine’s sister, Gabrielle), in the hut.
The girl, Marion, invites Nelly to play at her house on the other end of the path from Nelly’s grandma’s home. Marion’s house, where she lives with her mother (Margot Abascal), looks almost exactly like grandma’s — just 20-some years in the past. Nelly figures out, as the audience does, that Marion is her mother as a girl, and that the path between the two houses is really a time portal.
Sciamma doesn’t need expensive movie magic to make this act of time travel work. It’s powered by childhood magic, which is powerful enough for the task. The Sanz sisters — especially Joséphine as Nelly — make this relationship feel as natural as two girls who just met but are fast friends, because of a connection Nelly soon realizes she’s had since before she was born.
Nelly gets to see her mother in a new light, by seeing Marion’s mother — Nelly’s grandmother — as a woman in her 40s, rather than the gray-haired woman she knew from trips to the nursing home. The parallels between Marion and her mom, and Nelly and the adult Marion, are portrayed quietly and subtly, but still pack an emotional wallop.
“Petite Maman” is a marvel of storytelling efficiency, as Sciamma takes us through Nelly’s and Marion’s story, and leaves us in a puddle of well-earned tears, all in a mere 72 minutes. Sciamma pours meaning into every move, every moment, every object, in a beautiful story about two daughters and two mothers, and what separates and bonds them.
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‘Petite Maman’
★★★★
Opens Friday, May 6, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated PG for some thematic elements and brief smoking. Running time: 72 minutes; in French with subtitles.