Mum Is Wrong

A touching film about the discover of real life by a teenager. Many links, from single mother challenges, desires, sacrifices and compromises, politic of an insurance film in the eyes of a teenager, love story and jealousy, truth and friendship, to the image of storage closet , drama of poor people against interests of assurance companies and first steps to acceptance of maturity. Beautiful job of Jeanne Jestin, admirable performance of Emilie Dequenne.

The topic of this French film has never been told about before. At least, as far as I know. See for yourself. A fourteen years old girl, besides her school hours, goes with her mother to the place where she works - the mother - an insurance company. So far, nothing unusual. But the teen girl rapidly discovers nasty things about the insurance contracts. For instance, the company forges false documents so that the people who subscribed to a policy can NEVER get paid. Most times, people in great financial distress. Disgusting, nasty methods that make you puke. I myself was terrified. So the teenage girl intends to help one poor family involved with the forgery, although her mother is guilty of this awful swindle. You can be annoyed by the naive behavior of the teen, but if you watch the film very carefully, you can be very disturbed, especially when you realize that the story becomes totally unforeseeable. The ending is the kind of one you can't expect at all. No moral in this feature, as the real life. But you also have some humor scenes.

A difficult movie to rate as the real topic of the movie appears quite late and reveals to be very touching.

The first half had me quite disappointing. The start idea is interesting - a secondary-school pupil discovers the company's world. But we first have something really stereotyped in its depiction of first the family - a split family - and the relationship between the parents and in the depiction of the company and the workers there. Thus, the story really begins but here as well, no surprise: the title told it already what to expect. And I did not find the movie treating the subject of the knock off the pedestal of the heroin's mother (which mother was idealized versus the father as the first scenes have showed it): it is not bad, but that is showed how I was expecting it. Even Emilie Dequenne - maybe my favourite actress - was not enough for me to dive into the story.

And then, almost miraculously, appears the real topic! From there, the director achieves his goal by making us wondering on our own ethic. (Spoiler - I won't disclose the movie but will explain what I felt was that real topic) The main question is there I guess, even more than the fresh look of a child on the company's world: what would you do if you were in her place, forced to a work that disrespects your own values, under an heavy pressure. I guess we all had to face 'stubborn employees' that doesn't want to know anything about the unfair situation his or her company makes profit of. This movie places you in the situation and force you to think about your own reaction: would you still go for it, because of the pressure (from the employer, from the need you have to feed your family, ...)? would you resign? become a whistleblower? The ending, not oversimplified, is worth it, Emilie Dequenne finally shines and that made me almost forget the first half.

In conclusion, I put a 7, to average a first half worth a 5 and a great second part worth a 8).