Un enfant de toi (2012)
Directed by Jacques Doillon

Film Review

In Un enfant de toi (a.k.a. Me, You and Us), Jacques Doillon revisits two of his favourite themes - the eternal triangle and the adult world viewed from a child's perspective - and weaves these into an engaging drama that allows the director to play to his strengths, unravelling the tangled intricacies of human relationships with precision and poetry as only a committed auteur can.  Regrettably, on this occasion Doillon neglects his audience a little and ends up delivering a film that is overlong, repetitive and too self-conscious to be entirely satisfying.  Whilst the film has some good points - an excellent cast and an astute, meticulously crafted screenplay - it is too self-consciously theatrical and languorous to have much appeal beyond Doillon's hardcore fan base.  Even those who are admirers of the director's work have to admit that this is pretty small beer compared with his past achievements.

On the plus side, the film is extremely well-cast, with the lead female role comfortably inhabited by Doillon's multi-talented daughter Lou (like her mother Jane Birkin, she is now enjoying success both as an actress and a singer).  Malik Zidi and Samuel Benchetrit are a surprising but effective choice for the two lead male roles, the more introspective, moodier Zidi making an effective contrast with the more outgoing, self-satisfied Benchetrit.  Whilst he is hardly an established actor, Benchetrit has already made a name for himself as a director, with such offbeat films as Janis et John (2003) and J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster (2008).  Zidi does occasionally outshine his two co-stars (he is, after all, the more experienced and gifted actor, by some margin), but Lou Doillon and Benchetrit prove their worth in some exquisitely tender scenes, although their efforts are undermined by the sheer volume of verbiage they have to cope with.  The film is as much of an endurance test for them as it is for the audience.

And then we come to the real star of the film, nine-year-old Olga Milshtein, a born scene stealer who immediately grabs our attention when she appears on screen as Lou Doillon's sweet little daughter.  If there is one area where Doillon is unsurpassed it is in his direction of children, evidence by his captivating child's eye drama Ponette (1996).  Once again, Doillon gets the most out of a talented child actor and makes her the focus of his film, the prism through which the adult comedy of manners is given a suitably wry slant.  Milshtein's character may be a blithe seven-year old, but she has a maturity and directness that the adults patently lack, and like her we look at their antics with increasing bewilderment and dismay.  The one thing that redeems Un enfant de toi and makes it worth the effort is Olga Milshtein's heart-warming naturalistic presence, which never lets us forget how wise and perceptive young children are compared with us know-it-all adults.

Film Synopsis

Aya and Victor have been together for several years and enjoy a happy life with seven-year-old Lina, Aya's daughter from a previous relationship with another man, Louis.  Aya has made up her mind to have another child but cannot decide whether the father should be Victor or Louis, whose acquaintance she has recently renewed some time after their painful separation.  As Aya hesitates between her two lovers, one a responsible, hard-working dentist, the other an arrested adolescent, she is reminded of her former passion for Louis...