Fabrice Luchini plays against the role of a touching grandfather against a backdrop of GPA

After Gérard Depardieu and Michel Houellebecq, Guillaume Nicloux tackles another indomitable monument, Fabrice Luchini, whom he manages to take out of his comfort zone in the role of a persevering, attentive and touching grandfather. The little hits theaters on September 20.

Joseph (Fabrice Luchini) is putting a final polish on a piece of furniture he has just finished when a phone call tells him of the death of his son in a plane crash. At the airport, where he goes with his daughter (Maud Wyler)he comes across the parents of his son’s partner, ready to fight to seek compensation for the loss of their son.

Joseph doesn’t care. He never really liked his son-in-law or his parents. In shock, he has only one concern: the baby that the couple gave birth to via surrogacy, and who is growing somewhere in Belgium in the womb of a young surrogate mother. From then on, the sixty-year-old widower does everything possible to ensure that this child will not be abandoned…

Surrogacy

No doubt to overcome two losses, that of his wife, then that of his son, whom he did not know how to love as he would have liked, Joseph considers the future child as his descendant, and he makes it an obsession. Regardless of how he was conceived, and how he will be born, he will do anything to get it back (including dancing the caterpillar at a Belgian ball).

Joseph becomes closer to the young surrogate mother, Rita (Mara Taquin) and through perseverance, manages to coax this young woman with a fiery temperament, to forge bonds with her and with her daughter whom she is raising alone.

After the UFO Thalasso (2019), Guillaume Nicloux returns with a more classic feature film, a family drama which seriously addresses the subject of filiation in the context of GPA (surrogacy) implemented by a homosexual couple .

Through this drama, the director highlights all the questions raised by this practice, banned in France, tolerated in Belgium under certain conditions, but often practiced illegally, as is the case for the two characters in the film.

“What are we doing ?”

With this free adaptation of the novel by the writer and screenwriter Fanny Chesnel, The cradle (Flammarion, 2018), Guillaume Nicloux tackles the subject not as a technical or moral question – and that is the whole point of the film – but through the prism of the human, on the scale of a family. “It’s too late to ask these kinds of questions, now that he’s here, what do we do?” Joseph asks the father of his son’s companion, hostile to the process undertaken by the two boys before their death, and hermetic to that of Joseph obsessed by this baby.

The young woman hired by the couple embarked on this adventure to finance her studies and her independence. She has no intention of doing Joseph any favors in his quest, especially since the disappearance of her parents deprives her of part of the promised salary.

But she is obviously something other than a womb, and the feelings this pregnancy inspires in her are not so simple. Joseph’s perseverance, the power of his desire and the relationship that develops with the young woman end up giving this very special transaction a human dimension, which will allow the young woman to bring this pregnancy to term while respecting herself, and for Joseph to find meaning in his life.

Luchini off the nails

In a classic and unsurprising setting, The little manages to move us thanks to a fair balance between drama and humor, and above all thanks to a duo of actors who carry this story with conviction. The director of The kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq (2014) explores his favorite subjects – filiation, disappearance, mourning – in a new register, that of drama and emotion.

A tone which allows Guillaume Nicloux to offer Fabrice Luchini an unusual role. The unexpected actor offers a nuanced interpretation of this paradoxical character, simply forgetting to give us his act. “The character caught my attention a little. I didn’t think he would take a part like that of who I am“, confided the actor in an interview on France 2.

In front of him, the young 25-year-old Belgian actress, Mara Taquin, seen in The Syndicalist, embodies with a force that bursts the screen this young surrogate mother, a strong and fragile character at the same time, never in the posture of a victim, but torn by contradictory feelings.

The little is a tender and moving film, on a social subject treated off the beaten track.

The sheet

Gender : Drama
Director: Guillaume Nicloux
Actors: Fabrice Luchini, Mara Taquin, Maud Wyler
Country : France, Belgium
Duration : 1h 33min
Exit : 2023
Distributer : SND

Synopsis : Joseph learns that his son and his companion have just died in an accident. They were expecting a child via a surrogate mother in Belgium. What will become of their future baby? Is Joseph the legitimate grandfather? Carried by the promise of this birth which will prolong the existence of his son, the sixty-year-old sets off to meet the young Flemish woman with a fierce and indomitable character…