Joseph, a widower in his sixties, lives more in his cabinetmaking workshop than in his house. The patient presence of his daughter, Aude, constitutes his only defense against isolation. Joseph also has a son, Manuel, with whom he is on bad terms. However, reconciliation will not take place, because Joseph learns of the death of Manuel and the latter’s spouse in a plane crash. Except that before his sudden death, the couple was expecting a child from a surrogate mother. Tearful but determined, Joseph sets off in search of the young woman. In the drama The littleby Guillaume Nicloux, Fabrice Luchini plays a man who comes back to life late.
An actor whose immense talent has long been demonstrated, Luchini nonetheless surprises in the role of Joseph, which is a bit of a counter-job. Indeed, when we meet the actor and his character in the opening, in the middle of work in the workshop, we are miles away from the bourgeois and/or intellectual contexts with which we more readily associate him.
In the same way, the star of the films The discreet, Beaumarchais the insolent And The women of 6e floor puts a damper on his characteristic verve and plays with restraint in order to embody this man who sometimes lacks words. Certainly, the actor has already shone by focusing on interiority (Confidences too intimate, In the House), but the character of Joseph has a slightly crude side hitherto unseen in Luchini’s palette.
However, the actor is not alone on the trail, far from it. In fact, a host of gifted actresses surround her, starting with Maud Wyler, in the role of Aude, Joseph’s daughter, and Mara Taquin, in that of Rita, the surrogate mother. Both have their defining moments, in emotional implosion and explosion, respectively.
Anonymous production
Moreover, it is regrettable that the story takes so long to bring Joseph and Rita into each other’s presence. Upstream, progress is laborious, despite realistic legal and administrative pitfalls.
In the same way, in the third act, while an understanding between Joseph and Rita hangs in the dramatic balance, eleventh-hour setbacks give an artificial dimension to the screenplay co-written by Guillaume Nicloux and Fanny Chesnel (based on his novel) .
When directing, Nicloux was also more inspired by the past, visually speaking: see the thriller This woman there or the drama The nun, according to Diderot. His staging here proves perfectly competent, attentive to the faces of the performers, but anonymous in all respects.
The fact remains that, for those who love Fabrice Luchini, The little worth a look.