Tomorrow and Thereafter

From the first scene on, we feel something is wrong ;a mother and her daughter meet the headmistress of the school ;the teacher complains that Mathilde has no friends ;but it's the mother's attitude which puzzles the viewer : she worries about her syntax errors ;worse, when the meeting is over,she will not remember what she came here for .

Suffering from mental disorder which recalls Alzeihmer's desease, the mother seems more and more irrational: buying an owl as a pet is not common;besides,the "removal" and the train she takes to go nowhere make us think ,that ,little by little , mother and daughter reverse the roles .

The owl can speak : but it may well be the little girl ,left to her own devices ,talking with herself ;Mathilde is a clever mature girl (that's what the teacher says) and she has to face her mom's mental disorder and the dad's absence :he has deserted the house for some time .As he is completely sane and seems to have a steady job (he speaks of his patients) ,we can wonder why it took him so much time to comprehend why he had to take in his own daughter.

The director (who also plays the thankless part of the mother) films the owl with virtuosity :she really makes us FEEL how this confident becomes more and more important to the lonesome girl ;the bird does stare at you ,he seems to be everywhere in the room without a single special effect . It might remind you of Kenneth Loach's "Kes " (a boy ill-treated by his family whose friend is a hawk) ,but it's more dreamlike ,closer to a fable than to social drama .

The owl is a night bird ,who lives in the forest where the fairy tales mom and girl tell each other at night take place;a bird you do not see in the daylight , the ideal pet for someone who has something to conceal ;when his work is over,he will fly away ...

This is a disconcerting movie:not from the children's market ,in spite of the subject, it has not really found an audience among the grown-ups either.But on the French scene ,give it a chance: it goes off the beaten track.

Minor quibble :why do FRENCH directors always choose songs in ENGLISH? "Oh my mama " fits the movie like a glove ,but why not a French version? (or at least subtitles); and why "winter wonderland" ,a carol which is not part of the French culture at all? why not "Petit Papa Noel " ,huh?

This is an intriguing view into the mind of a child dealing with the real-world problem of a mother's rapid descent into mental illness. Though the story is occasionally heart-rending, director Noémie Lvovsky uses nine-year-old Matilde's mix of imagination and make-believe to keep as light a tone as practical while not avoiding the difficulties of the situation. It's set in a different time and social milieu than Rebecca Miller's "Angela", and issues of abuse and religious indoctrination don't drag the tale into a deep pit of despair. Still, Mathilde's situation -- often fending for herself -- will keep you watching in a constant state of anxiety.

All the technical elements are fine. As for the acting, Lvovky's performance as Mathilde's mother will have you genuinely concerned that she's in the darkest stages of depression. Lead actress Luce Rodriguez is also very believable. And the scenarios in which Mathilde finds herself, and the actions she takes, stay close enough to our preconceptions of what a child her age might do that we believe it's real.

The ending, necessitated by Rodriguez's health concerns, is somewhat abrupt, but handled well. And it leaves us with hope. Here is a film well worth watching.