OPENING NIGHT FILM  Showing off her comic skills as a bohemian mother who goes to work for a time-share operation in Ostend, Isabelle Huppert reaffirms her status as one of cinema’s most indispensable actresses. She plays the flighty, strong-willed Elizabeth (“Babou” to her friends), who lives with her more conservative daughter Esmeralda in the north of France. When the latter announces that Elizabeth is not invited to her upcoming wedding, mom decamps for the coast of Belgium in order to prove to her child that she can live a “normal” life. There, her gregarious but no-nonsense nature brings her in contact with friendly locals, a homeless couple traveling rough and an increasingly jealous cadre of coworkers. Marc Fitoussi’s charming script refuses to point fingers, presenting mother and daughter as the flawed people they both are. Adding additional cinephiliac frisson to the scenario is the fact that Lolita Chammah, who plays Esmeralda, is Huppert’s real-life child.


Written by Marc Fitoussi. Photographed by Hélène Louvart. With Isabelle Huppert, Aure Atika, Lolita Chammah, Jurgen Delnaet, Chantal Banlier (107 min, Kinology).