Marine (Marie Denarnaud) works in a bookshop and lives with her adopted sister and best friend Lisa (Melanie Laurent) and Lisa’s young son Leo. One day Alex (Denis Menochet) comes into the shop and he and Marine fall quickly and deeply in love. Their idyllic and care-free love affair is soon tested by disagreements before being beset by tragedy and what began as an almost whimsical romance soon segues into a heartfelt and considered dissection of love, loss, hope, despair and what it means to belong.
*****
Melanie Laurent will be familiar to anyone who has seen Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and here she makes her debut as a director, simultaneously doing a lot of the heavy lifting as the deeply caring but slightly more staid big sister of Denarnaud’s more free-wheeling Marine. It is to her great credit that she carries off both sets of responsibilities with such aplomb. We knew she was an excellent actor, but could not have anticipated what a deft touch she would have as a director.
Laurent could have set herself a less daunting challenge for her first outing. The gear shifts from romance and the first flushes of love through to agonising tragedy could have been hideously mishandled and become melodramatic to the point of being overwrought, but instead it is touching, moving, heart-breaking and affecting. Balancing these sorts of shifts in tone is thankless at the best of times and more experienced directors than Laurent have struggled more with similar arcs. At first the shift from the first act to the second does grate a little, but as the film then settles down and Laurent gets into her groove, the film gets under your skin.
The acting performances are excellent and natural across the board. Lisa’s attempts to loosen up after a slightly frosty beginning, coupled with her effusive expressions of anger and distress later on give Laurent a lot of ground to cover but she is equal to the task. As the smitten and devoted Alex, Menochet is endearing and well fleshed out (he will also be familiar from the opening scene of Basterds) and even young Leo is beautifully and amusingly played by Theodore Maquet-Foucher, natural and endearing beyond his years.
The shifts between quirkiness, fantastical elements and more conventionally dramatic scenes will not suit everyone and many seem to have switched off by this potentially grating stylistic issue, but if you can forgive such errors by a novice, there is a lot to enjoy here and if nothing else the promise of much more to come from a clearly gifted and promising film-maker.
The Adopted is out now on DVD and you can rent or buy it here.
[Rating:3.5/5]
Extras: Just a trailer.
