I still haven’t finished my film reviews from Toronto International Film Festival! Pretty sad when I let myself get distracted by Sarah Palin. Good Grief!
Back to films:
Maman est Chez Le Coiffeur – French
The sadly tender story of three children left to deal with their mother’s leaving the family. I’m not sure how believable it is to think that a mother, seemingly satisfied with living life at home with her children, when she learns her husband’s secrets she reacts by leaving husband and children to develop her own career. The kids are delightful — the oldest daughter with the beginnings of adolescent curiosities, a middle son who stays busy building a go cart/mini car with a lawnmower engine and the youngest boy with special needs. The husband tries to take over, the cause of the marriage meltdown is never addressed, and they all seem to bumble through, hoping that she will just appear again as if she’d never gone away. Most of the film follows the oldest daughter as she is working through her mother’s absence, telling the neighbors that “Mama is at the hairdresser’s” as well as adjusting to her father’s presence even though she knows, without understanding, at least part of his story. Set in the suburban ’60s, there is a poignancy throughout for innocence lost.
***
