The Reel Review
A young French girl, sad that she didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to her maternal grandmother who recently died, joins her parents at her grandmother’s house for the solemn task of cleaning it out. While there, she befriends a mysterious girl next door who looks curiously just like her, in this dramatic fantasy from French writer/director Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire).
Petite Maman is quite literally a surreal little film, with a runtime of just over an hour and ten minutes. Set to a colorful backdrop of rural France, its mysterious and unexplained elements of time-travel are treated as matter of fact. As the two girls get to know one another, there is a big reveal – only it’s really not all that surprising – the young actresses playing the girls, after all, are real life twins Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz and the title itself – French for “little mother” – also makes it pretty obvious what is going on. The girls, in their feature film debut, do a terrific job capturing the carefree abandonment and playfulness of childhood.
Told in a very straightforward, childlike manner, the simple story is a unique exploration of childhood perspectives on love, grief, memories and child-parent relationships. It has some tender moments, despite some painfully slow pacing (particularly in the first half) that requires complete attention to appreciate the story’s many nuances. Petite Maman is a sweet movie that will linger with you afterwards, as you contemplate your own childhood perceptions of mortality and how your perceptions of your own parents have changed over time.
REEL FACTS
• In addition to writing and directing Petite Maman, Céline Sciamma also did the costuming for the film, just as she did for 2014’s Girlhood.
• Sciamma wrote the screenplay for the 2017 Oscar-nominated animated film My Life as a Zucchini, about a group of orphaned children.
• Sciamma, who lost her own grandmother shortly after Petite Maman premiered at the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival, says as a child she enjoyed playing the pretend detective character that the girls play out in the film.