Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Nathalie Baye, Lyna Khoudri, Pascale Arbillot, Claure Perron
Intro:
... played with heart and the cast bring commitment and charm to their roles. In its slight way, it will be a crowd pleaser.
The French didn’t invent fashion, but they can have some claim to be the heartland of its tradition, or at least of the high end. Paris is still one of the world capitals of fashion. Haute couture, after all, roughly translates as high fashion. This simple and elegant tale from Sylvie Ohayon is soaked in the fashion milieu, but it is all about the craft and the back-room preparation rather than the actual catwalk.
Nathalie Baye – keeping up another French tradition by appearing about 20 years younger than her actual age – is Esther. She works in a Dior-like fashion house making creations out of only the best fabrics. The relations between all the co-workers are cordial, and there is the occasional bit of banter in the sewing room, but everyone is expected to know their place and, above all, be reverentially serious about the process of garment making. Esther is coming to the end of her career but is gearing up for one last perfect season.
The inciting incident comes when she is mugged on the metro by a pair of savvy girl thieves. They are of Arab descent and live a totally different life in the huge housing projects on the edge of Paris far from the best arondisements. One of the girls Jade (Lyna Khoudri) gets a conscience and contacts Esther to return the bag. Initially Esther is just angry but pretty soon they fall to talking.
This being the movies, the sulky street kid turns out to be very attracted to the fashion world and Esther, who is partly estranged from her own offspring, decides to take Jade under her wing as a kind of substitute daughter. No prizes for guessing that the pair bond despite their differences and Jade turns out to be not only the possessor of a heart of gold but a natural designer/dressmaker.
The themes – the need to racially integrate, the eternal links between the young and the old, empowerment of young women today – are both modern and hard to fault. It is a rags to riches story using rags for riches you might say. Its claim to fame is not originality but it is played with heart and the cast bring commitment and charm to their roles. In its slight way, it will be a crowd pleaser.
