Even in so-called enlightened societies, it is practically an article of faith that the identity of a woman as a mother must replace all her other identities. Not only that: any woman who does not want to sacrifice all the other love of her life for the love of her child is not natural, an aberration and the ultimate taboo: a bad mother. The sweeping, the moving move of Anna Cazenave Cambet, based on the semi-autobiographical novel of Constance Debré, aims at the heart of this omnipresent ideology of hypocrisy and inaccessible expectations, and largely thanks to a rigorously radiant Vicky Krieps vicure, makes its mark with painful precision. The paths towards what is socially considered as a mother is few and narrow and highly monitored, but there are a million ways to fail.
Krieps, Lean and Rangy in T-shirts and denim, Plays Clémence, a divorced Writer who used to be a Lawyer, and Amicublic Shares Custody of Her Eight-Year-Ong Son Paul (Viggo Ferreira-Redier) with her ex-Husband Laurent (Antoine Reinartz, So Memorable As the Prosecuting Attorney In “Anatomy of a Fall.”) We introduced to a content and excited Clémence which seems following a major self-assessment. At the swimming pool one day, she swims her laps, connects with a woman in her woman in her mast cabin, then emerged to a sunny day in Parisie and phoned her child. He asks her how far she has swam today. In a small ritual between them, she shows him the sky.
The hot and loose camera of DP Kristy Baboul swallows around her as a classic viola player – on certain days are only good days – but Clémence has not yet said to Laurent (not to mention Paul) that she saw women now. She therefore organizes a meeting with her ex in a familiar cafe and announces the news, confident to her reaction, confident in her understanding. In fact, it’s almost funny, the way it takes place, with Laurent’s false response with an answer followed by an extremely long traction on his drink. But later, retrospectively, we will understand the currents of this intelligent scene, and we will wonder if the light behavior of Clémence, and its friendly but firm rejecting of Col Laurent is later, are what causes its unthinkable bitterness. Because Clémence’s new sexual freedom obscurely arouses Laurent to inflict the most vindictive revenge on it. First of all, keeping her Paul of her, the lawyer Laurent then implies the courts, depositing falsive allegations of the ugliest genre in a successful attempt to ensure that her police custody is entirely suspended. The damage it will do to Paul never seems to be a factor.
Here, the film, like the life of Clémence, is spreading in two: part of his races on his professional, personal and romantic life, the other takes work almost full of combat time through a legal quagmian so that her maternal rights are restored. Even if all the people involved understand that it is impeccable, the tortuous process takes place since it will not see Paul for 18 months, or as she says in the voiceover (sparingly but eloquently extracted from the work of the self -fiction that Clémence writes) “two of her birthdays, one of her people.” Even then, it is limited to brief sessions under surveillance by a social worker (Aurélia Petit). “Can I hold it on my knees?” It begs, and the embrace that followed is a heartbreaking relief, but far from the end of the story.
At more than two hours, “Love Me Tender” feels a little too long, especially once the relationship of Clémence with journalist Sarah (Monia Chokri) becomes more serious. Chokri is slightly poorly turned and their relationship, despite a frank sex scene involving the use of a strap, is less convincing in its chemistry than, let’s say, the connection of the leniency nightclub with victory (an underused park Ji-min of “return to Seoul”). But the time spent hanging out with Clémence and his roommate Leo (Julien de Saint-Jean), or his father (Féofor Atkine) cannot feel wasted when Krieps’ home is so complete. It is a huge and generous performance, even its body language changes – slippery and nonchalant when you turn a new lover, limb and a loose girl when he relaxes with friends, and tight and compressed in this horrible mediation room, her bass burners, her expression concentrates as if she wanted her heart to slow down her rhythm.
After the excellent “We Believe You” of this year from Belgium and “All to Play for” from 2023 with a formidable Virginia Efira, French -speaking dramas following mothers involved in childcare -care litiges have all time. “Love Me Tender” is a notable addition to the trend, for Krieps, but also for its painful but moving end: Clémence takes a transgressive and devastating decision, in which is woven the most slender hope that, as we learn to appreciate the magnetic mothers who are also complicated women, it can one day do not seem very transgressive.
