Nearly 15 years after the publication of Marie-Renée Lavoie’s successful coming-of-age novel, Patrice Sauvé has created an adaptation that is both unifying and more auteurist than his previous projects. Its headliner, Gildor Roy, develops a natural bond with the young Juliette Bharucha, who plays here her very first role in the cinema.
Like the book, the film is set in Limoilou in the 1980s, well before the gentrification that characterizes this district of Quebec today. Thus, Hélène (Juliette Bharucha), 10 years old, undertakes to deliver newspapers in the area to bring money home, while her father (Vincent-Guillaume Otis), a teacher, struggles to make ends meet and her mother (Marilyn Castonguay) stays at home to watch over her and her sister.
The title refers to the friendship between the little girl and her new neighbor, Monsieur Roger (Gildor Roy). Moody and grumpy, he softens through contact with the little girl, who introduces him to reading. Literature ends up occupying a central place in the story, becoming both an escape from the misery of Hélène’s daily life and a lever for social advancement, since her father aspires to become a writer.
The montage alternates period scenes in Quebec and sessions representing a fictional world, inspired by Old man and the sea (Ernest Hemingway, 1952), a book that Hélène read on the recommendation of her father and which had a profound impact on her. It is also the last book that the latter has read for years, even though he dreams of “becoming the Michel Tremblay of Limoilou”.
Author signature
Patrice Sauvé, known for the cult series Life, life (2001-2002), comedy Cheech (2006) or the adventure film Big Dipper. The key to possibilities (2009), therefore allows himself certain moments of dreaminess as well as an exceptionally evocative, albeit conventional, staging, drawing on his own cinephilia. The little one and the old man was even selected at the prestigious Locarno festival, demonstrating at the very least his signature as an author.
“All my life, I have deeply loved cinema, but I have never been an author who writes his own screenplays,” says the director in an interview. Once again, I worked from someone else’s text, in this case Sébastien Girard. But I was finally able to construct a softer story, full of subtleties, whose staging is inspired by my teenage favorites, like the films of Fellini or Tarkovsky, which moved me. »
For example, the filmmaker dares to use expressive lighting, using a palette of sepia colors to mark the passage of time. It also depicts visions of the little girl, when, in her fertile imagination, reality and fiction often seem to merge.
Details that The little one and the old man wants to be accessible despite everything. Patrice Sauvé repeats it: his film “is there to do good”. “I started production in the middle of a pandemic, when we no longer saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I wanted to take advantage of all the cinematographic techniques that I had learned in more than 25 years in the profession to make a film that could honor the joy and hope that emanate from the book. “.
Message of hope
A message of hope instilled by the candid tone of the novel, “which never lapses into miserabilism”, according to the filmmaker, although it deals with heavy themes. Indeed, dark realities are addressed, including the alcoholism of the father and Mr. Roger.
Patrice Sauvé also places his story in the broader context of the wave of deinstitutionalization that was taking place at the time. Curious – but charming – characters then appear in the streets of Limoilou and come to liven up Hélène’s walks in her neighborhood.
“While reading the novel, I fell under the spell of the protagonist who, despite the difficulties surrounding her, manages to remain positive, thanks among other things to her relationship with literature,” maintains the director. And I found in Juliette Bharucha the perfect person to play her. She stars in 97 of the film’s 101 scenes. It’s a huge responsibility. But his intelligence, his curiosity and the power of his gaze confirmed to me that I had made the right choice. »