Betty Fisher

Brigitte Fisher (Sandrine Kiberlain) is a successful writer, who adopted the pseudonym of Betty Fischer also as her real name. She is a single mother, and has just moved from New York to France with her son of about four years old to a house in the French suburb. Her mother Margot Fischer (Nicole Garcia) is a deranged woman, who lives in Spain and comes to France for some specific physical and mental exams. Betty has many traumas from her childhood due to the treatment spent by her mother. While talking with Margot in the kitchen, her son falls from the window of his second floor room and after a period in coma in a hospital, the child dies. Betty becomes very depressed and one day her mother arrives at home with a child of approximately same age as her dead grandson. She tells Betty that the boy is the son of a couple friend of her, who had traveled on vacation and asked her to take care of him. Some days later, Betty realizes through the news that her mother had indeed kidnapped the child. However, Betty is very affectionate to the boy. Meanwhile, many parallels stories happen with characters related to Betty and the child, being disclosed to the viewer. With a great screenplay and excellent interpretations, this low budget French movie is excellent. The story has many subplots, alternates drama and mystery, is amoral and not corny, the characters are very well developed and there are no clichés. I watched this movie in an American DVD called `Alias Betty', spoken in French with subtitles in English, and I highly recommended it. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): `Alias Betty' (American DVD)