In order to escape a band of thugs to whom she owes money, Angèle (Eye Haïdara, noticed in Meaning Of the party), Ivorian without papers, without fear, but not without blame, finds a job as a nanny with room included in a chic neighborhood thanks to Wassia (Bwanga Pilipili), her charitable neighbor who raises her son alone. If Hélène (Léa Drucker), her new boss, mother of a baby and a 10-year-old boy, Arthur (Vidal Arzoni), finds favor in her eyes, Angèle soon discovers that the nannies she meets at the square n don’t all have the same luck as her.
While Wassia is the victim of injustice on the part of her wealthy employers, Claire (Élodie Navarre) and Paul Berthuis (Pascal Réneric), Angèle does not hesitate to pass herself off as a lawyer. Enter Édouard (Ahmed Sylla), a real lawyer, who, succumbing to Angèle’s devastating charm, promises to help Wassia. However, Édouard’s hierarchical superior, Henri (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing), is a very good friend of the Berthuis…
Inspired by the relationship between his son and his nanny, Julien Rambaldi (That’s life) signs a charming comedy with a social flavor whose greatest quality is the talent of its main star, the dazzling Eye Haïdara. From almost all the scenes, the actress manages to make people believe that Angèle, “filoute” undermined like a flower of macadam, foments, by indulging in a few shenanigans, a revenge of the prams in the sore neighborhoods. The latter, apart from the character of Léa Drucker, touching but too little exploited as a career woman crumbling under the mental load, are also hideous caricatures in this rather Manichean universe.
Wishing to denounce the precarious status of the nannies, most of whom come from immigration, and to praise their solidarity, Rambaldi misses the opportunity to make them known by neglecting the beautiful gallery of female characters that Angèle crosses between school and home. In fact, apart from the worthy Wassia and the funny Fatou (Jicsa Kalvanda), few of them stand out in The women of the square. The choral form would no doubt have been a better option for exploring such a vast subject.
However, the director and his co-screenwriter, Jean-Luc Gaget, preferred to bet on the complicity that develops between Angèle and Arthur, a child too mature to be credible, fortunately embodied with aplomb and sensitivity by the prodigious Vidal Arzoni. So they chose to highlight the romance between Angèle and Édouard, which turns out to be inconsistent, the second not being the weight in front of the first.
Remains the unifying character of Angèle, more complex than it seems at first sight. Thus, through the fiery and clever aspiring lawyer, we approach the drama of women exploited by scum, that of mothers forced to leave their children in their native country, that of migrant women facing systemic racism. And how many other dramas that we ignore. Devoid of cynicism, combining emotion and good humor with panache, The women of the square turns out a ” feel good movie with big strings, but above all a lot of heart.