Une vie qui commence

I watched this in French with subtitles. It is a story of a happy family with three children. The father, a doctor, gets caught stealing antacids from the pharmacy. He is disbarred. He kills himself with a drug overdose. The family is left with very little money. The oldest boy is very attached to his dad, and acts out in a number of bizarre ways, getting deeper and deeper into trouble. Nobody seems to notice what the problem is. The mom tries extremely hard to hold things together, but things keep falling apart, worse and worse.

In general, everyone is quite restrained. You have to look in their eyes to figure out what they are thinking. Except for trying to kill his mom's suitor with golf club, the boy is not malicious. There is a strange logic to his actions.

The movie pulls compassion out of you for all the characters, without using any of the trite Hollywood tricks. It is a hard movie to watch.

Julie leBreton is an astounding actress. It is like it is happening for real to her, whatever the situation. She is completely believable.