Juniper review | For Charlotte Rampling

Mourning for his mother, Sam, a rebellious teenager, is expelled from his school in New Zealand. His father forces him to take care of his grandmother, Ruth, a rigid and alcoholic woman, confined to a wheelchair. Breaking with her loneliness and sadness, she will light up little by little and give Sam a taste for life.

“Some families are only made up of strangers,” says the poster for Juniper. Drawing on his own family history, New Zealand director Matthew J. Saville signs a touching, but conventional, debut feature. A beautiful meeting between two wounded souls, two loneliness who will recognize each other in their pain and their sorrow.

One living in England and the other in New Zealand, Sam and Ruth have nothing in common at first glance. The tormented teenager with suicidal thoughts and the authoritarian old woman who drowns her emotions in pitchers of gin must therefore tame each other. Before recognizing each other and forming what looks like a real family.

Juniper (The past rediscovered in French version) makes us travel in the beautiful New Zealand countryside, thanks to a very controlled photography, but does not innovate in the structure of the scenario. The narrative, unsurprisingly, is constructed in a very predictable fashion. Even sewn with white thread. And preach with good feelings.

Nevertheless, Juniper worth the viewing for Charlotte Rampling’s performance. This great actress, nominated for an Oscar in 2016, has the status of an icon in the cinema and has played for the greatest filmmakers. On screen, she still has a penetrating, disturbing gaze. His playing, all in delicacy, in interiority, perfectly serves the mysterious character of Ruth. The actress finds here once again a role commensurate with her talent.

In the role of his grandson, Sam, the young actor George Ferrier is a revelation. The chemistry works quite well between the two performers and makes us believe in their rapid evolution. The solid Marton Czokas, who plays Sam’s father, and Edith Poor, in the role of the nurse at home, come to support the tandem of actors in this otherwise quite juvenile cast.

Eventually, Juniper is a pictorial and fictionalized autobiography quite conventional, but full of humanity.

The film is presented in English version and French dubbed version.

Drama

Juniper (VF: The past rediscovered).

Matthew J. Saville

With Charlotte Rampling, Martin Csokas, George Ferrier

1h34
Indoors

6/10