La daronne

Nothing works in this movie. The scenario is bad, really bad. And again Isabelle Huppert is not doing well to make it better. Save your time, do watch it!

My Review- The Godmother, or La Daronne, or Mama Weed My Rating 8/10 This very entertaining French film amazingly wasn't even considered in submissions for Best International Feature movie and as far as I'm concerned it's far superior than the winning Oscar movie from Denmark "Another Round." It may sound an odd description in describing La Daronne or "Mama Weed "as an elegant ,touching, and humorous film about a glamorous drug dealer but that's what it really is .

The wonderful and still beautiful French Actress Isabelle Huppert who was nominated for an Oscar in 2017 ( becoming one of only 7 actresses to be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for a French Speaking role) for Elle stars as Patience Portefeux an underpaid, overworked French-Arabic translator in charge of phone surveillance for a narcotics police unit uses her insider knowledge and police resources to build her own crime network.

The film script of The Godmother is written by Hannelore Cayre, the author of the original novel, La Daronne, which took out the 'Quais du Polar', a prize awarded annually to the best crime or thriller novel by a European author in French or a French translation.

It's skilfully directed by Jean Paul Salomé and has a great supporting cast including Hippolyte Girardot as the Police Chief in charge of trying to apprehend Mama Weed who is much closer to him than he really thinks . Also a lovely performance by Liliane Rovére as Mme Portefeux the mother of Patience who is in aged care .

There's a cute local reference in the film when Patience is describing a photo on her wall to Sydney in this film about our New Year Fireworks Celebrations , which shows how famous our annual New Year Celebration is.

This is a very entertaining film and well worth a look I especially loved the Christmas display at Galeries Lafayette where Mama Weed and her 2 daughters "go shopping with her mother."

'' Mama Weed '' is a French Black Comedy about a woman who works as a translator for the police, decides to become a drug dealer herself, like those she has been translating all these years. There is a creepy and mysterious past that surrounds her, as small details of it resurface here and there, as well as some touching ones when it came to her daughters and her relationship with her mother.

On the other hand, and even though there were some interesting plotlines that could have been developed and managed better, the movie fails to impress. In the end, it feels like a half baked drama with no climax and no real story.

The performances, at least, were all great.

So, overall, five out of ten.

While watching it. It's not only comedy, it has dramatic moments, also. Isabelle Huppert is amazing, and manages to cover the plot holes. In the end, one may not care if the whole thing is credible or not, good acting makes it an overall entertaining movie.

Let me start by saying that I enjoyed the movie! I thought the plot was fresh and unique, and Izabelle Ruppert was magnificent. Considering she was 66 at the time of filming, she also looks amazing!

Now about what have not worked for me in this movie. At the beginning, the movie presented us with moral philosophical dilemmas, and as I started to become emotionally involved with the characters, it made a 180 degree turn and became a comedy. Don't get me wrong, I love comedies, and there were some really funny moments where I laughed out loud, but I honestly struggled the whole movie and with how to perceive it, as a comedy or as a crime thriller. I definitely could not relate to the main character anymore and really could not root for her. Honestly, at the end I was rooting against the mama weed hoping the logic/simple deduction would prevail.

Other things that bothered me are the plot holes that made police look really really stupid and drug dealers naive and funny! Because of that, you could not really call this movie a crime thriller, even though there were all the ingredients for it. In other words, there were no thrilling moments to make me sit at the edge of my seat and bite my nails. As soon as there were some signs for it, scenes were turned into a joke. Again, this was due to the problem of mixing the jenres. It would have been better if the movie stayed with the comedy crime theme without involving very poignant and serious moments.

The movie has touched many important topics, including relationships with elderly parents, immigrants trying to survive to have a better live in a new country, but I almost felt like there could have been two movies made out of this one. See it for yourself!