After the death of the one she worked for for years, a fifty-year-old lands a job in the maintenance department of the School of Fine Arts and discovers a fascinating place where freedom, creativity and audacity reign. . Of a reserved and discreet nature, married for 25 years, always at the service of others, will Maria finally reveal herself to herself?
Posted at 11:30 a.m.
First feature film of a tandem already winner of a César trophy, obtained two years ago thanks to the short film On time, maria dream is a fully assumed romantic comedy, from which emanates sweetness and benevolence without lapsing into overrated sentimentality.
In a kind of misuse, insofar as she is usually given character roles, Karin Viard slips wonderfully into the skin of a woman who has always lived her life modestly, with a man she has married 25 years ago.
The great idea of this film directed by Lauriane Escaffre and Yvo Muller, who also wrote the screenplay, is to have orchestrated two types of encounters for their heroine Maria, in a more unusual setting. By landing a job as housekeeper at the École des beaux-arts, this more mature woman first saw a kind of revelation in contact with the place and the students. We should also underline here the presence of Noée Abita, formidable in the role of a conceptual artist whose installations are, to say the least, original. It’s a bit as if, instinctively, Maria, without really understanding this new world for her, feels that she might be able to start a new chapter in her life, closer to her truth.
The filmmakers are of course betting on the offbeat – and funny – situations that circumstances can generate, but also integrate into the story a sentimental encounter between two lonely souls (Grégory Gadebois, excellent, embodies the guardian of the School), told from very nice way.
Lauriane Escaffre and Yvo Muller obviously do not have the ambition to reinvent everything, but maria dream is one of those films full of charm, which do good to the soul.
Romantic comedy
maria dream
Lauriane Escaffre and Yvo Muller
With Karin Viard, Grégory Gadebois, Noée Abita
1:33 a.m.
Indoors