Je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas

This project almost didn't get off the ground artistically because it is loaded with so many inconsistencies and improbabilities. When the parents of 19-year-old Lili walk around like zombies, evade all attempts by the girl to learn her brother's whereabouts and generally bring the story to a halt, it's up to Melanie Laurent to inject as much life as she can into the plot. That she is so successful is a tribute to her great talent and charisma as a performer. The hospital scenes must have been especially difficult for her, but they work very well. I must say she looks very convincing as an anorexic. Aissa Maiga as Lili's friend and Julien Boisselier as her boyfriend also provide strong support (but Boisselier seems a bit too old for the part).

Philippe Lioret on the basis of the three films of his I have seen, seems to be a capable but hardly inspired director. He relies a lot on the actors to drive his pictures.

When nineteen-year-old Lili Tellier (the sweet, pretty Mélanie Laurent) returns to her parents' cookie-cutter suburban house after a summer studying in Barcelona she's told that after a fight with their father Paul (Kad Merad) over his messy room her fraternal twin Loïc has run off without explanation. We don't know much about Loïc other than that he is a talented musician-songwriter and a rock climber who abhors his dad's drab conformist commuter-train life. Waiting in vain for a call back on her cell phone, Lili is so deeply troubled by the news of Loïc's disappearance that she eats nothing for the next eight or nine days. She collapses and is taken to a psychiatric hospital where she's put to bed and she and her parents are told she can't see anyone till she eats. This she refuses to do and her condition steadily worsens.

Protesting this regime, Lili's father forces the doctor to let her see a letter that has come from Loïc. She gets better and is released and letters keep coming. They show Loïc is drifting from town to town, surviving on odd jobs and playing his guitar for money. Lili stays out of school and becomes a supermarket checkout person like fellow university student Léa (the radiant Aïssa Maïga of Bamako) who became a good pal in Barcelona, and socializes with her and Léa's meteorologist boyfriend Thomas (Julien Boisselier), who helped try to "spring" Lili during her psychiatric confinement. Loïc's letters are a mixed blessing. They give her a thread of hope but leave her in much doubt. Lili can't move forward with her life until she has learned more about Loïc and actually seen him. Is he homeless and desperate or just finding himself? Is there some deeper cause for his absence than a fight over a messy room – as one would think – and as the psychiatrist said there must have been a deeper cause for Lili's depression than her brother's disappearance? Melanie Laurent has to be the film's center and its mirror. She must achieve balance, suffering and fading yet still somehow appearing to remain alive also to a future as yet undetermined. Isabelle Renauld as Isabelle, Lili's mother, is harried yet always appealing. Paul (Kad Merad) is perhaps the most important character, a drab office worker, a shut-down dad, repressing his anger and self-pity, seemingly without emotion, but capable of more than it seemed. As Lili grows closer to the sensitive and pained looking Thomas, she learns that he and she grew up nearby and have similar backgrounds. The exotic and lovely Léa goes to Mozambique. Lili decides to move out of the house and Paul has new plans for himself and his wife.

Don't Worry holds surprises in store for us. You might call it a mystery of family life. The film's delicate accomplishment is in the way it reveals a secret world hidden in the heart of the commonplace, love behind indifference, a lust for adventure behind timidity. Things are not as they seem. Like a book Thomas presents to Lili, the story ends in a way that is partly sad and partly not.

To some extent the film stands or falls on its surprises because they are the necessary stepping-stones out of the drabness. The suburban setting is also central – identical houses that kill the soul highlight emotional ties that alone make life bearable. Lioret works in wide screen, with a bright, conventional palette. The depression happens in the light of day, where it's most hopeless and inescapable. There is nothing chic or showy about this film; it avoids either the glamour of elegance or the glamour of destitution and places its events right at our doorsteps. We may feel a little manipulated in the withholding of key information till the end, but this is how we're drawn into the characters' claustrophobic world. The acting is fine and the changes are subtly modulated, and Don't Worry succeeds in making us both feel and think.

Part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center, New York, March 2007, Don't Worry had five César nominations and two wins -- Meilleur Espoir Féminin for Mélanie Laurent and Best Supporting Actor for Kad Merad. No US distributor.

Picked up for €1 at a car boot sale in Normandy as it had English subtitles mainly because it looked a promising subject. We certainly bought into this well acted story for 1hr30 although the film was about half way through before the searching began. However, the film then lost all credibility with a totally unrealistic explanation as to Loïc's disappearance. It is interesting to note the lavish praise other reviewers have heaped on the film given this glaring weakness in the screen play. It would have been better to have left the viewer uncertain as to Loïcs ultimate disposal. Hence only 4 stars. Have however sought out a further two films by the director.

I was given this movie and did not know anything about it. I have been very touched by the story. The actors are very good in their roles and don't overact. The film was quite hard sometimes however it really shows how strong the family links between brothers and sisters can be. The relationship between Lili and Grenouille is also full of reality. It is hard sometimes to understand how the father react to the cruel words read by his daughter on the cards she received but it is his way to protect her and it is a very noble act. Melanie Laurent is a little rising star for the french cinema. I really advise you to see this movie as it is a beautiful one.

Elise is a young woman 19 years old who return home after having spent a school year in Spain. She meets again her parents and is surprised not to see her twin brother, Loïc. Her parents explain to her that her brother has left home after a violent quarrel with their father. But, she is astonished not to have received phone calls from him. She suspects that something arrived to her brother, but she has no means to get news from him. Then she decides to stop to eat. Her parents are obliged to send her to an hospital and it's only when she receives post cards from her brother that she stop her hunger strike. But things are not simple and she shall discover later truth about his brother disappearing. The movie is a very dramatic painting both on conflict between parents and child, but also on love that ties twin brother and sister. Acting is very good, specially for Mélanie Laurent and Kad Merad and I consider this movie as a great one.