BETTY FISHER ET AUTRES
HISTOIRES
ALIAS BETTY |
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Director:
Claude Miller
Screenplay: Miller, based on the novel by Ruth Rendel, The Tree
of Hands.
Cast: Betty: Sandrine Kiberlain
Margot: Nicole Garcia
Carole: Mathilde Seigner
François: Luck Mervil
Alex: Édouard Baer
Édouard: Stéphane Freiss
José: Alexis Chatrian
Awards: Best Actress (Sandrine Kiberlain, Nicole Garcia, Mathilde
Seigner), Montréal World Film Festival (2001).
Running time: 101 minutes
Production: France/Canada, 2001
Rating: Not rated (some violence and sex)
Gauge: 35mm, DVD (color)
Language: French
Distributor: Wellspring Media
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"Alias
Betty is a confidently adroit thriller that captures a comprehensive
sense of life in an edgy, multicultural and economically diverse Paris.
The large cast couldn't be better, but the film belongs to Kiberlain."
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times. |
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When Betty,
successful novelist and single mother, loses her young son in an
accident, her mentally disturbed mother duly plucks a child off
the streets of a housing project and brings it home as a replacement.
At first Betty wants nothing to do with the boy. The kidnapping
is all over the news, with the boy’s mother, Carole, a white
working-class barmaid with loose morals, interviewed by the police,
and her kind-hearted black boyfriend, François, blamed for
the crime. Betty tries to return the child surreptitiously, but
the little boy clings to her. Touched by the boy’s affection
and her discovery of bruises all over his body, Betty decides to
keep him for herself and save him from a miserable life. His predicament
reminds her of the abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of
her own mother. From this electric set-up the film traces the ripple
effects of the kidnapping, from François’ search for
the real kidnapper to a blackmail attempt on Betty by her ex-lover
when he discovers her secret. But the heart of the film remains
with the three mothers, and the commanding performances of Kiberlain,
Garcia and Seigner, as women traumatized by life’s mischances
and trying to cope as best they can.
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| PHOTO Wellspring
Media |
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