Roxane

A nice and elegant surprise from Mélanie Auffret, a young director with a great career ahead of her, undoubtedly. It's a poetic and surrealistic tale in the Côtes d'Armor, north of Brittany, with Raymond as a main protagonist. He is an organic farmer who regularly and secretly reads Cyrano de Bergerac (Edmond Rostand, 1897) to his hens. In front of an imminent threat of bankruptcy, Raymond will have to work twice as hard. In this respect, he will develop his passion for theater so that the public gives an overwhelming support to his talent and thus gives credibility to its agricultural activity! Although sometimes patchy, this movie is built on a strong and original script, and the actors are talented, especially Guillaume de Tonquédec. As a synthesis, 6/7 of 10.

This movie is what you would call dainty and gentle. A farmer is about to lose it all and comes up with a crazy plan, with the help of his English neighbor who happens to also be an actress. In between the funny and sometimes slightly ridiculous parts of the movie, the harsh reality of struggling farmers is shown like suicide, asking for loans and ever dropping prices of products. The movie is not fast paced and those who expect an educated take on a french farmers life should look elsewhere. This is just a cute and quirky movie about a desperate farmer, his chicken, his family and his crazy English theater teacher/neighbor.

It takes a lot for me to laugh at a movie but I had tears streaming down my face. Just go watch it with an open mind. Not going to spoil it here.

A nice surprise from a young director with a great career ahead of her, undoubtedly. It's a poetic and surrealistic tale in the Côtes d'Armor, north of Brittany, with Raymond as main protagonist, an organic farmer who regularly reads Cyrano de Bergerac (Edmond Rostand, 1897) to his hens. To overcome a threat of bankruptcy, Raymond will have to work twice as hard in order to develop and then popularize his passion for theater. Although patchy, this movie is built on a strong and original script, and the actors are talented, especially Guillaume de Tonquédec. As a synthesis, 5/6 of 10.

I've seen this movie twice now in a few days. It's certainly enjoyable, and Guillaume de Tonquédec is most certainly winning as the not particularly verbal hero who finds his voice in the character who spoke for those who could not speak for themselves : Cyrano de Bergerac (at least as Rostand portrayed him in his masterful 1897 verse drama).

Unfortunately, however, the clever idea behind this script is not well developed.

A much better movie about the plight of France's small farmers is *Au nom de la terre*, which came out just a few months after this movie. A better recent movie about individuals finding their voices in classic French literature is *Alceste à bicyclette*, in which two actors find a way to give voice to their feelings by reading Molière's classic *Le Misanthrope*.

Don't miss this movie, certainly. It's enjoyable to watch. But don't expect a lot of it.