Hollywood could use a leading lady like Victoire Thivisol. Not only is she beautiful, she can also bring even the hardest-hearted moviegoer to tears with one pout. Unfortunately, she's French and hasn't started first-grade yet!
Thivisol, who was 4 at the time the film was shot, gives such a stunning performance in the drama "Ponette" that it is nearly unbelievable. In fact, even the usually finicky judges at the Venice Film Festival recognized her talent and gave her the festival's Best Actress Award in 1996.
Obviously, her performance as the title character, a child mourning the death of her mother, would be the major reason to see this moving, four-hanky film. But writer/director Jacques Doillon — who interviewed French schoolchildren about the movie's subject matter before writing the film's final script — has done a tremendous job of realizing the story through a child's eyes.
As the film opens, Ponette's mother (Marie Trintignant) has finally succumbed to injuries suffered in an automobile accident. And though Ponette has been injured herself, those physical wounds are nothing compared to the emotional scars left by the loss of her mother.
Ponette's atheistic father (Xavier Beauvois, a French filmmaker in his own right) believes the girl will recover eventually, especially with help from her aunt and her precocious cousins Mathias (Matiaz Bureau) and Delphine (Delphine Schiltz), so he leaves her in their care.
But Ponette becomes increasingly withdrawn, and refuses to eat, or to play with the other children. Instead, she waits for a sign, any sign, that her mother will return and insists that her mother has appeared in her dreams.
At school, she turns to a Jewish classmate (Leopoldine Serre) and prayer for help. And then she heads to the cemetery to be with her mother.
Despite the heaviness of the premise, the film is never depressing — although it is very sad. Credit that to some well-placed humor (much of it involving Bureau, who is also quite charming) and a surprisingly upbeat ending (which almost feels like a cop-out, but not quite).
But as mentioned, this is very much Thivisol's show. Her multidimensional performance is a thing of wonder, and it should be a treat watching her "mature," if she chooses to continue acting, of course.
Besides carefully casting Thivisol and the other fine child actors here, Doillon also manipulates the action quite nicely by keeping his cameras low, at child's-eye view for the most part. The effect of this, as well as the well-researched dialogue, is the most vivid peek into a child's mind in recent memory.
"Ponette" is not rated, but would probably receive a PG for some violent play between children and a couple of profanities uttered by Beauvois.