La femme de mon frère

Yesterday evening, I saw this excellent film at a premiere in the presence of the director Monia Chokri and part of the film crew, within UGC Les Halles, in Paris. During her short presentation speech, she synthesized her film as an autofiction, the autobiographical part remaining undisclosed. She also seemed intimidated and touched by the presence of the audience, in a crowded movie theater.

This film is a cinematographic UFO with exquisite dialogues and endearing characters: Sophia (Monia?) has lived too long in the family cocoon, in total symbiosis with her brother Karim, and after a doctoral thesis of a blatant uselessness, she painfully finishes her adolescence at 35, awkwardly discovering that she must learn to live by herself and for herself, without her family, with a 10-year lateness somehow, the trigger event being the unexpected arrival of the gorgeous Eloise in the life of her brother.

A nice and elegant first movie from Monia Chokri, a young director with a great career ahead of her, undoubtedly.

There's so much nuance to this film that is simply beyond description. Weird at times, but never losing the point.

It never dwells into the abstract (except for that scene where the sister does drugs), but for the most part it's a cinematic masterpiece with a unique look into family relationships.

There's a very clear concept of color throughout the film. A very deep understanding of sound. An intimate (not just one) portrait of a neurotic sister trying to "find herself" as Karim puts it.

And it's filled with joyful hilarity. Despite the intensity of the topic, it's filled with great comedy, one that often made me laugh out loud.

Cuts and framing were odd but good, they worked with the mood of the film. The main big argument between the two siblings was fantastically absurd and hilarious. Overall, it looks like Chokri picked up influences from Dolan, who was very obviously influenced by Godard. Very much like Dolan's 'It's Only the End of the World', the film attempted to be too many things and lacked the self awareness of Godard to be anything but shallow. The film touched upon quite a few serious topics such as politics, communism, the absurdity of being overeducated but lacking experience, sibling relationship, an unstable family, death, drugs, insecurity and jealousy. Many topics are touched upon and insinuated, but none of them are explored properly in depth, making the film quite pretentious. So many questions are asked but none are answered. Suddenly all of Sophia's problems seem to have vanished once she fell in love and found a job. The film's ending shows a terribly naive perspective.

What the hell was that?

I didn't get the movie at all. Too pretentious, trying to be too artsy à la Xavier Dolan, dialogue that goes nowhere....

The shots were beautiful and the acting on point (even if it was a bit too intense in some scenes). But besides that...

The movie had lots of potential but unfortunately it didn't get where it should. The first few minutes were fun and intriguing, but after that.... useless conversations and a bit awkward.

Also why it's called La femme de mon frère if the girl was clearly not the wife of the brother (yet) ?

There's better French Canadian movie to watch. Don't waste your time.