LA DARONNE/ THE GODMOTHER/ MAMA WEED

France, 2020, 104 minutes, Colour.

Isabelle Huppert, Hippolyte Girardot, Farida Ouchani, Liliane Rovere, Iris Bry, Nadja Nguyen, Rebecca Marder, Rashid Guellaz,Mourad Boudaoud.

Directed by Jean-Paul Salome.

Isabelle Huppert has been headlining, top billing, for almost 45 years. And still she goes on, looking much the same in each film, even as she grows older – though, in this one, she does get quite an opportunity to change her appearance. But, she is a reliable screen presence, bringing strengths and variety to each of her films.

It seemed necessary to google the meaning of the title, indicating some kind of slang for a mother figure. The English title, The Godmother (with echoes of The Godfather) does seem a little formal. There is another English title circulating, Mama Weed, which probably does indicate the themes of the film as Well Is the tone.

On the surface, this is a police thriller. Drugs are coming from North Africa, trucks driving through Spain and into France for delivery and distribution. The police are on to different gangs and families, North African based, a lot of surveillance, phone tapping, GPS… And, amongst those working at headquarters is Patience, herself of North African background with family migrating to France decades earlier. She is a widow with two daughters. Her mother is suffering from forms of dementia and is being cared for in an institution, paid for by Patience. And Patience works in the department, listening in to surveillance tapes and translating from Arabic to French.

So far, not so exactly Mama Weed.

At one stage, Patience has to make a decision, especially her concern about the kind aged-home carer who looks after her mother, turning out to be the mother of one of the truck drivers. And the decision has all kinds of unanticipated consequences.

Patience, in fact, is finding it hard to make ends meet, owing substantial rental to her landlady, an imperious Chinese landlady, Patience mother being threatened with eviction from the home for financial reasons…

In some ways, we suppose, the screenplay is indirectly asking us what we would do in a similar situation, protecting the kind carer, the consequences with the drug load in the truck, diverting the drugs to save the driver, and the interesting challenge as to what to do with such a huge haul of drugs!

Well, the title does indicate that Patience is going to become Mama Weed – using her considerable wits, to locate the drugs, buying a former sniffer dog as a companion and accomplice, set up the very contacts that the police are keeping on surveillance. And, the big chance for Isabelle Huppert to appear not exactly like herself, donning very fashionable Arabic clothes, headscarf, dark glasses, for her rendezvous.

There is also another complication, she is beginning a fond relationship with the police chief in charge of operations and surveillance, his becoming more and more frustrated. And, there is quite some tension in the action, and then thugs invade a Chinese wedding, hosted by the landlady (who, of course, become something of an accomplice), and there are shootings and bodies to be disposed of!

We are in admiration for Patience and her skills – but, this is a moral/amoral world and we have to check what our attitudes are has Patience literally sails off to a new life.

1. Police thriller? Drug crimes? Imports and dealers?
2. Drug dealing thriller, the twist with Patience, her story, her mother and care, financial difficulties, translation work, the decision about the drugs, her skill in dealing?
3. The Paris settings, the police precincts and interrogation rooms, apartments and apartment blocks, the streets, restaurants, cinemas, ordinary Paris life? The musical score?
4. The background of the drug deals, input from Africa, tracks through Spain, into France? The distributors in Paris? The various families? Brutal competitiveness?
5. The police, the leads, tracking devices, recording phone calls (the tone of the opening credits)? French and Arabic? Patience as translator? The range of staff, officials, police on the beat? Philippe in charge? Scenes of interviews, the dealers, their arrogance, spitting at Patience…?
6. Patience, her life, from Africa, memories of her father and survival, her mother and her physical deterioration, in care, her behaviour, touches of dementia, being treated as a Princess by the staff? The two daughters and their work, support of their mother? Patience and her work, language skills, typing up reports? Her visits to our mother, exasperation? Her reliance on Khadija? The manager of the home wanting to evict her mother? Her owing money to the landlady?
7. Patience and her relationship with Philippe, the attraction, the meetings, the outings, shared discussions, the possibility of a future?
8. Patience listening to the driver, realising who he was, the plan, the talking with Kadija, the information about the drugs? Her mistranslations? Her plan, the funds, the driver’s mother, his viewing of the road, destroying his phone, the police and the tracking devices? The mystery as to location of the drugs?
9. Patience, her plan, her adopting the narcotics dog, getting the map, working out where the drugs could be hidden, using the dog? Finding the site, transporting the drugs home, the basement room, going back for more?
10. The arrest of the drug dealers, the getting out, the search for the drugs?
11. Patience and her contact with the dealers, their ordinariness, the plans, the agreements, the variety of meeting places, the prison, the shops, the supermarket, the cinema…? The exchanges, Patience buying the money counter?
12. Patience, her disguising herself in Arabic clothes, changing her manner and style, tough dealings?
13. Paying the home for her mother, money to Kadija, paying the landlady? The landlady and her shrewdness, sensing money and drugs, offering to do the money laundering?
14. Patience and the dangers, thugs following her, the police, the Chinese wedding, the intrusion the thugs, the guns and the shootings, the landlady clearing everything up?
15. Philippe, exasperation at losing the criminals, Patience and her work as translator, getting information, avoiding some translation, her fainting? Her being caught on camera, Philippe and his telling Patience that the dealer was of the same build as she?
16. The decision to stop the deals, returning some of the drugs to the initial hiding place? The death of her mother and its effect? The pathos of the scenes between them, antagonism, her mother’s memories of the past, the photo in the boat when she was young? The daughter’s and the stories of their mother and grandmother taking them shopping? The comic touch with the distribution of the ashes in the apartment store near her favourite departments?
17. The deal with the landlady, the money from the sale of the apartment? Packing up, Philippe and his last visit, his regrets? Suspicions and Patience having an answer for everything? The landlady’s offer of the job, her going to Africa and future sales? Her sailing in the boat and its name?
18. How sympathetic character was Patience, sympathy for her situation, admiration of her shrewdness – a kind of moral/amoral character and behaviour?