QUELQUES CHOSES A TE DIRE (BLAME IT ON MUM)

France, 2009, 99 minutes, Colour.
Mathilde Seigner, Pascal Elbe, Olivier Marchal, Charlotte Rampling, Patrick Chesnais, Sophie Cattani, Jerome Soubeyrand.
Directed by Cecile Telerman.

Quelques Choses a te Dire is one of those stories of French families that the French film-makers do so well.

Patrick Chesnais and Charlotte Rampling portray a couple who have been married for forty-five years. Their eldest son is in business, importing rice from Asia, but as fallen on hard times, is lacking business management. The next child is a daughter, Alice (Mathilde Seigner) who is an artist but is drug-dependent and promiscuous. The third child, Annabelle (Sophie Cattani) is a nurse.

While all seems normal enough, Alice becomes involved with a policeman who wants to leave his pregnant wife. He has a story about his father having an affair and having another son. The father was an artist – and he shows Alice the pictures of the mother of the son, and it is her mother. This opens all kinds of complications, possibilities of revenge, issues of inheritance, issues of truth and lies.

While the film moves to a difficult ending, it changes gear, having some hope, everybody coming together in some kind of support and love.

The French title, Something to Say to You, is much more effective than the pseudo-jocose title, Blame it on Mum.

1. The blend of the comic and the serious? A family portrait? Complications?

2. The French title? The English title? The French title – and who is the speaker and who is the listener?

3. The French settings, the middle class, wealth, conservative? The mother and her life, comforts? The children and their relationships? Family meals? Her husband, his prestige, retiring? Forty-five years married, the preparations for the celebration? Yet the brittleness of the marriage?

4. The children and their problems, the tangles, the intersecting of the stories, the revelations, the satisfactory resolution?

5. Alice, her age, her art, drug-dependent, her abortions, relying on Annabelle in the hospital? Her being set up with the drugs, the arrest, the police brutality, Jacques and his interrogation, kind, throwing the drugs away? His following up contact, meeting with Alice, the ticket for the exhibition, his being outside, knowing the paintings? Alice and her bond with Jacques, the relationship, his wife and her pregnancy? The visits, her tantrums? The issue of the rice? Her father paying for the exhibition and buying some of the paintings?

6. Annabelle, at the hospital, her support for Alice, her relationship with the doctor, the operations, his being married, her pregnancy?

7. Nicolas, his age, marriage, children? The grandparents doting on the children? His rice business, the failure? His going to court, the lawyer and her assistance, the three months to pay his debts? His inability? His morose nature? His not relying on his father for financial help, the visits of his father to the office? Jacques and his visit, their talking, the bond, Nicolas finding Jacques sympathetic, pouring out his story? The underlying theme the audience knew of brother talking to brother? Jacques telling him the truth, the effect? The plan? His relationship with his mother? Talking to his father, his father’s continued support and love?

8. Jacques, his age, twenty years of marriage, tired, at work, his wife and the discussions? His two lives, with Alice? Discussions, telling her his story about his father? Alice not telling him what she discovered? His anger with her, the reconciliation?

9. The father, his work, success, retirement? Wanting to help Nicolas? The forty-five years celebration, weary, talking to Madeleine about her son, the truth, his support? Wanting a break? Leaving?

10. Madeleine, her breezy style, the revelation of her story, the art student, the encounter with the artist, her pregnancy? Her going to her husband, his accepting the paternity? Forty-five years of a comfortable life, breezing through life, controlling people? Her seeing the pictures? Admitting the truth?

11. The build-up to the crisis, the revelations, the explanations?

12. Yet the hopeful ending, the opening of the exhibition building and the studio? Everybody happy – and the group photo?