Charlotte Rampling is a goddess: that’s it. We will forgive the hyperbole, but the fact remains that this actress has maintained, over her 60-year career, a unique aura. As shown by The Night Porter (Night porter), by Liliana Cavani, Angel Heart (At the gates of hell), by Alan Parker, under the sandby Francois Ozon, 45 Years (45 years old) by Andrew Haigh, and Dunes-Byyou One (Dune: part one), by Denis Villeneuve, to name just a handful of films. Charlotte Rampling is driven by an eclectic sensitivity, a taste for risk, and a gift for spotting visionary filmmakers.
Even when the dramatic material falls short of her extraordinary talent, Charlotte Rampling is always, at the very least, captivating. What the recent recalls Juniper (The past rediscovered), a somewhat familiar family story.
We follow Sam, a depressed teenager who multiplies the pranks in the boarding school where his father sent him after the death of his mother (no, dad is not a fine psychologist). However, Sam is not at the end of his troubles, nor of his trouble for that matter, since it happens that Ruth, his paternal grandmother whom he has never met in his life, now occupies the room of his late mother.
Confined to a wheelchair following an accident, Ruth had to leave England to settle in New Zealand, where her son and grandson reside. A former war photographer, Ruth is temperamental, misanthropic and, above all, an alcoholic.
When the father goes on a business trip (which is not so bad considering that the character is underwritten), Sam and Ruth have every opportunity to look at each other like earthenware dogs before, inevitably, a rapprochement occurs. .
Communicate helplessness
Thus, almost everything turns out to be quite predictable in the plot concocted by director and screenwriter Matthew J. Saville, of which this is the first feature film. On the other hand, we appreciate a refusal, now all too rare, to explain everything through dialogue.
In fact, Saville willingly relies on his interpreters and their ability (it is after all their job) to communicate emotions and intentions through a look, a silence, a posture…
In this regard, and to return to the main reason for seeing the film, Charlotte Rampling has no equal: a quivering of the eyelids, a purse of the lips, and here we take the measure of Ruth’s impotence. Crippled and dependent, she, once an intrepid adventurer…
Hence his dull anger, and hence his sardonic, even frankly hostile comments: you have to hear him rebuff a pastor with moralizing benevolence. After he had declared that he could do nothing for her if she did not have faith, Ruth answered him without flinching: Then fuck off. There is something almost elegant about vulgarity in the mouth of the star.
beautiful moments
There are very beautiful moments, in particular this “beautiful big slow”, to quote Richard Desjardins, during which Sam and Ruth dance in the middle of the friends that the teenager has invited to party. Under the stars, these two wounded beings, and ready to bite for this reason, share a rare moment of tenderness and mutual understanding. Impossible to keep my eyes dry (just like during the denouement, for the account).
As Sam, George Ferrier is excellent. It is however Charlotte Rampling who, by her mere presence, adds considerable additional interest to the film. A film that we would have liked more at the height of the immense actress.