Ils sont vivants

The director ,whose film is his first effort,resumes a subject Philippe Lioret had already broached in his absolutely remarkable "welcome' (2009); based on a true story ,it's the (relatively) optimistic side of 'welcome " :like in Lioret's superior movie, France ,par excellence the country of refugees (particularly political refugees),is shown in a less-than-flattering light than usual;on the other hand ,one can wonder whether the United Kingdom is really the promised land as it appears in the film. In Calais ,people who gave a shelter to illegal migrants were actually troubled by the Police .The last lines tell us so.

Béatrice is a widow and she's devoted to her thankless job , an auxiliary nurse ...The facts that she gives away all her late husband's clothes to the refugees indicates she wants to live with the living,even though she says it's only to get rid of them ;as usual, Marina Fois ,not your feel-good-movie brilliant careerist , shines in her role of a working-class heroine ;the main flaw of the movie is that it focuses too much on her ,and ,with one exception , reduces the others to foils to her , baddies who do not understand and who want to preserve their "happiness" from this riffraff; the cop agrees to lend her money , but only because it can win her love he has been longing for since the husband's funeral;the scenes with the would be friend also gets in the way ; and the bed scenes are too long,but the director wanted to depict an amour fou .

Excessive length: The film feels endless, giving the impression that it takes an eternity to conclude.

Uneven acting: While the main actors deliver strong performances, the supporting cast struggles to convince.

Unbelievable romance: There's no real explanation for why Béatrice falls in love with Mokhtar, making their relationship hard to accept.

Unnecessary scenes: The lengthy sex scenes add nothing to the plot and come across as superfluous.

Rushed character development: Béatrice stops being racist after a brief walk through a migrant camp, during which she is shown all the tents for no apparent reason, seemingly just to speed up the storyline at an unnecessary point.

Poor sound quality: The sound design is sloppy. You can hear the lavalier microphones rubbing against clothing, and whispered dialogue is often unintelligible.

Linguistic inconsistency: The relationship between Béatrice and Mokhtar is uncomfortable, partly due to their age gap and initial inability to communicate. Yet, inexplicably, they suddenly become bilingual at certain points in the film.

Positive aspects: The lighting and framing are well-crafted, delivering visually pleasing shots despite the film's other flaws.

Just a heads-up: there are a lot of unnecessarily long sex scenes, and there's also a penis shown. None of this adds anything to the film.