Friday, June 22, 2018

Marvin ou la belle éducation (Reinventing Marvin)

Marvin ou la belle éducation (Reinventing Marvin), dir. Anne Fontaine, 2017 France, 115 minutes, in French with English subtitles 💖
Friday, June 22, 9:00 p.m. Castro • U.S. PREMIERE

Marvin ou la belle éducation
(Reinventing Marvin):
Isabelle Huppert
and Finnegan Oldfield
Marvin Bijoux, whose last name literally means Jewels,  is grow­ing up in a small town in northeastern France, bullied by class­mates, bullied by his older half-brother, bullied by his father. One day he, perhaps not accidentally, misses swim lessons at school, so the principal drops him into an improv acting class, where he discovers his calling. He gets into drama school and moves to Paris, where he creates a new chosen family, including Isabelle Huppert (playing herself). Marvin looks back only to draw inspiration for a theatre piece about his childhood, garnering rave reviews but also causing a stir in his home town.

The story weaves back and forth from present-day to Marvin’s adolescence. Although Finnegan Oldfield (pictured) does a great job as present-day Marvin, I would be remiss not to highlight Jules Porier, who plays the younger Marvin; with roughly the same amount of screen time, he more than holds his own in establishing the story, playing a difficult role, in­clud­ing endur­ing quite a bit of on-screen bullying, with nuance and grace. Without giving too much away, the present-day story line does much to redeem the bleak suffering of the ado­les­cent Marvin. Although the bullying, both physical and psychological, is difficult to watch in places, it is entirely integral to the plot. Definitely a MUST SEE.

IMDb • trailer (English) (français) (YouTube) •

No comments:

Post a Comment