Maman est chez le coiffeur

Mommy Is At The Hairdresser's

Set in 1966 the movies approaches the themes with the ideas of the time, much was good as I will explore, but the movie failed to examine clearly the drivers that lay behind behaviour. Seeming autobiographical it was largely presented as a series of emotional responses, how "French".

For a mother to abandon her children (if I don't leave I will die) as presented in the movie is one thing but to movie to London, another country and continent is another. An overheard conversation and an inference is not a sufficient driver, it needed to be stated clearly, she believed he had a homosexual lover who he played golf with. However this was not discussed between mommy and daddy and it needed to be for coherence. If this was the case she could have moved out nearby and relocated with the children.

Instead of feeling sympathy for the mother we hated her for her selfishness.

The movie then segwayed into a children's movie trying to understand parental behaviour. The leading understander was Eloise the daughter who sorted solace with a local mute fly fisherman who made flies to sell.

To my mind as a movie is was visually ravishing but the story lacked emotional intelligence or any arch like structure. This is a 3 outta 10 from me!