by Annette Basile
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:
Jasmine Trinca, Leïla Bekhti, Rafaëlle Sonneville-Caby, Raffaele Esposito
Intro:
… the emotional impact of the film as a whole doesn’t resonate as deeply as it should … It’s almost, but not quite, brilliant.
Paris, 1900. A coquettish courtesan, Lily (Leïla Bekhti), is singing a cutesy love song on stage. It’s a familiar scene until the camera zooms out and we see that she’s singing to a donkey.
A few moments before meeting Lily, we’re introduced to Maria Montessori (Jasmine Trinca) – the real-life physician who developed the Montessori teaching method. She’s on the outskirts of Rome, travelling in a horse and cart, passing workers in a field – four women, bales carried over their heads, walk past her carriage. There’s something about these women – a collective inner strength. They’re not merely extras, they’re snapshots of strong women. It leaves an impression in just a few frames.
Those women and that donkey set expectations high for this biopic. But what’s special about it is something unexpected – it’s the kids that Montessori teaches, the children living with a disability that are portrayed by real kids living with motor and/or cognitive challenges. The kids are superb, an extended scene with them responding to music that Lily plays on the piano is captivating and uplifting.
Lily has found her way to the school after leaving her comfortable Parisian life when she suddenly had to take responsibility for her daughter, Tina (Rafaëlle Sonneville-Caby), after years of separation. Lily is a reluctant caregiver, ashamed of her daughter’s disability. For Lily, the caregiving arrangement is temporary, just until she can get Tina to board at the school. Yet Tina flourishes under Montessori’s compassionate methods, which include sensory enrichment, with young Sonneville-Caby simply extraordinary in her portrayal of Tina’s development.
An Italian-French co-production, its original French title, ‘La Nouvelle Femme’, translates to ‘The New Woman’; this is a feminist telling of Montessori’s life. It coudn’t be any other way – the times were stifling to women, and Montessori fought to be taken seriously. Not only was she a trailblazer in education, but an early feminist – a medical school graduate at a time when there were hardly any women amongst those ranks.
It all makes for a rich narrative – as well as her growing friendship with Lily, Montessori also has personal dramas, including with her lover/colleague Montesano (Raffaele Esposito) and their secret love child, who’s hidden away with a nanny in the countryside. It’s a source of conflict for Montessori, a teacher with a son who doesn’t recognise her.
Despite all of this going on, somehow the emotional impact of the film as a whole doesn’t resonate as deeply as it should. Yet Maria Montessori – only the second film from co-writer/director and actor Léa Todorov – is a fine, involving and polished work, with all of its narrative elements skilfully balanced.
It’s almost, but not quite, brilliant.
