Un mauvais fils

Claude Sautet's films are always rich in introspective thought, whether the subject is the fragility of existence (Les choses de la vie), the unconditional love of a man toward a woman that wants out of a relationship (César et Rosalie) or the everyday struggles to make it through ordinary existences (Vincent, François, Paul et les autres). In Un mauvais fils, Patrick Dewaere is paradoxely a good person who has made very bad decisions, but now wants to make amends and get a better life, all the while his father is still grieving the death of his wife.

Remarkably, while being usually casted in loser roles, Dewaere redeems himself from loser status to become a good son, a reliable worker and a strong support of his addicted girlfriend. It's too bad that we lost this prodigious actor too early, struggling himself with addiction and depression.

This film has a beautiful density. Dramatic density, with each of the characters who are human beings, not clichés or stereotypes. Each one of them contributes to this story, simple, but rich, dense, where family, friends, lovers contribute to produce a beautiful drama. Patrick Dewaere returns from prison in the USA; he finds his father, Yves Robert, who could give the title of "a bad father" to the film, even if we understand him. The police help Patrick Dewaere to reintegrate. He then crosses the path of Brigitte Fossey (very good performance), also in rehabilitation following his drug addiction. He also meets Jacques Dufilho, who will help him to reintegrate.

The film could be called a beautiful story, with beautiful characters, poignant at times, but gripping, which accepts that everyone has good sides, or weaknesses, and are able to overcome them, or not. The script also mixes, without condescension or judgment, the universe of the father, a public works worker, and the employer for the reintegration, Jacques Dufilho, who is a bookseller and music lover. These worlds are articulated through the character of Patrick Dewaere.

In its kind, a perfect film, which does not leave indifferent, which knots the stomach of the spectator.

It is not a film to be explained, it is a film to be lived! It goes straight to the heart, simply to the essential. Exceptional in truth and authenticity with a great casting of exceptionnal actors. Wonderful!

It was the first time since "Max et les ferrailleurs "(1971) that Claude Sautet had left the bourgeois milieu for the working class people ;with the exception of the bookseller,an educated man :and even him is part (remember the film was made 42 years ago)of the margins of society ,because of his homosexuality (treated with a great sense of modesty).

The cast is not Sautet's usual suspects;and in this context , they are well chosen:Yves Robert as the blue collar father ,whose son is a bad lot (check the title),because his hasty departure "killed his poor mother" ; but further acquaintance shows that this daddy is not the noble samaritan whose only concern was to take care of a dying wife. Claire Maurier , par excellence the determined woman ,perhaps the only character who has kept some kind of joie de vivre ; the emigrated worker , an exiled , par excellence a man who lives of the fringes of a society not prepared to accept him ,and who becomes the hero's best friend. The gay bookseller ,fond of opera -the only touch of the privileged life Sautet had depicted so many times in the seventies (Cesar,Rosalie ,Vincent,François ,Paul,Mado et les autres ,'in danger of despair" ,to quote the director himself a propos his 1974 effort)- acts like an adoptive father,not only for Bruno but also for Catherine ,an ex-junkie ,so-called clean but extremely frail ; Catherine is probably the weakest link of the chain : badly written :the sullen grumpy girl who inevitably falls in the hero's arms ,how many time has the average viewer seen that, since "it happened one night" (1934);Brigitte Fossey was a memorable child actress ("jeux interdits "= forbidden games) who resumed her career when she became an adult ;she's perhaps too cerebral in this context.....

But it's no coincidence if Sautet paired her with Patrick Dewaere ,himself a child actor on stage,whose brilliant career was brutally interrupted when he committed suicide :it was a major loss for the French cinema ;no other actor was at once frail and strong as he was and he was not replaced in this field ;his hangdog looks , his eyes are always longing for something he's always denied ;with the exception of Romy Schneider -who disappeared in 1982 ,like him- no other actor moved me more deeply than him in Sautet's movies.

Dewaere portrays a looser,an ex-convict who spent five years in an American jail for drug-trafficking and comes back to his native land to find his father apparently compassionate but cold and resentful ,a country in a state of crisis where unemployment runs rampant ; the ending is not that much optimistic as certain critics claim ; it is an open one, and it rather indicates that the fight has only begun for Bruno.

This is one of the more effective films by Sautet, a director who made commercial pictures with Romy Schneider all through the 70's. While I admired the artistry of Les choses de la vie and Cesar et Rosalie, I was a little put off by the rich decors and bourgeois sentiments. Un mauvais fils is a look at blue collar workers--Rene Calgagni is the foreman on a construction site, his son Bruno works first in trucking, then as a furniture maker, then in a bookstore. Madeleine, Rene's girlfriend runs a dry cleaning shop. Bruno is trying to remake his life after the prison sentence, and the difficulties of re-insertion into society are well-described by Sautet.

Patrick Dewaere gives a restrained performance, lacking most of the extraverted action that made Series noire and La meilleure facon de marcher so memorable. Yves Robert, despite the mustache that reminds us of Stalin, is very affecting as the severe father who doesn't know what to do with his errant son. Jacques Dufilho, playing a gay bookseller with many whimsical moments, earned the Cesar award for best supporting actor. Brigitte Fossey, playing a heroin addict who can't quite stay away from the drug even as she becomes involved with Bruno, has some fine scenes.