BOOMERANG

France, 2015, 101 minutes, Colour.
Laurent Lafitte, Melanie Laurent, Audrey Dana, Wladimir Yordanoff, Bulle Ogier.
Directed by François Favrat.

Boomerang is not exactly the right title for this film.

It is a very French story about family, relationships, secrets and lies. It is well written, well acted and keeps the interest.

The focus is on a sister and brother, Melanie Laurent and Laurent Lafitte, involved in a car accident as they squabble about the mystery of the death of their mother 30 years earlier.

The focus is on the brother, Antoine, going to a therapist who urges him to talk to his father, his reluctance to talk, his eventual being rebuffed – and his own difficulty with his wife and communication with his daughters. His sister is less interested in probing the truth, she being five when the events happened.

Antoine is spurred to investigate after he visits the morgue at the hospital in the aftermath of the accident, meeting a sympathetic thanatologist with whom he begins a relationship. He speaks to the couple who looked after them when they were children and finds that they were holding back, his father reluctant to talk about the events, his grandmother forbidding it.

Through an inscription on a watch, he discovers a woman in England which leads to the revelation of a relationship between this woman and Antoine’s mother, the severity of the grandmother about the relationship, the frustrations and the mother driving across a gap between the mainland and an island and losing her life.

There is a complication with Antoine’s older daughter and a lesbian relationship.

There is a satisfying happy ending, truth being told, but the woman in England sending some video of the mother and the two children walking along the beach, pleasing images to settle the brother and sister.

1. A film about family, relationships, mystery, secrets, uncovering secrets, peace?

2. The French setting, the towns, the streets, hospitals, the morgue, homes, therapy offices? The countryside? The sea, the passage to the mainland? The musical score?

3. The title and its significance?

4. The opening, Antoine and Agathe, in the car, the discussions, memories, irritation, speed, overtaking, the crash? The consequences? Hospital, injuries, recovery? Antoine in the hospital, visiting the morgue, memories of his mother’s death?

5. Going back in time? The situation about their mother’s death? Antoine and his wanting to know? The secrets, the urging of his therapist to talk with his father? Agathe and her wanting to let things be?

6. Antoine, his age, his marriage, separation, the daughters, unpacking, communicating with his wife? Difficulties with his older daughter? His relationship with his sister? The tension with his father, the father not talking? The mystery of the death of his mother? 30 years earlier? His difficulty in relating to his stepmother? The visits to his grandmother and bonding with her?

7. Agathe, her work, editing, serious, the result of the crash? Partly interested in the mystery, she and her brother visiting Bernadette, the husband, the edge in what they told them? The later revelation after the grandmother’s death, that the grandmother had forbidden them to speak, their feeling that they should unburden themselves? Telling the truth?

8. Antoine, the tension with his father, outburst at home, at meals, Christmas? The father’s reaction? The stepmother trying to keep peace? The role of the grandmother? The portrait of the family and its tensions?

9. Antoine, the morgue, the woman working there, friendship, going out, the attraction, her going home with Antoine, the relationship, her support of him in his quest? Her story of her work consequent on the suicide of her father? Her being comfortable with his daughters?

10. The watch, the inscription, the explanations? The discovery of the real Jean? The visit to England, her work, lesbian, the memories? Her explanation of her falling in love with their mother? The visits, the flashbacks, the visuals of the children and the mother on the beach?

11. The grandmother, her disapproval, denunciation? Wanting to protect the children? The children with Bernadette and her husband? The mother, writing the letter, its being delivered by Bernadette? Bernadette’s return, the mother wanting to go to Jean at the hotel, the tide, the crash? His mother ringing Antoine’s father, his coming, the crashed car? The finding of the body?

12. Antoine, the photo of his mother with Jean, giving it to people of the party, the angry reactions?

13. Antoine’s daughter, lesbian relationship, difficulty in talking to her father, saying that he did the same to her as his father did to him in not talking? Her confiding in Agathe?

14. Agathe and Antoine, her inviting Antoine to talk to his daughter, the reality about their mother?

15. The funeral, the priest, support, Agathe and her eulogy, breaking down, criticism of her grandmother, of her father?

16. The father, his apology, admitting the truth? The hold of his mother over him?

17. Jean, sending the video material, and the couple happy to look at the scenes with their mother on the beach?

18. Secrets and lies, opening up, therapy, truth, reconciliation?