Film Reviews

Ma Mere

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Emma de Caunes
• Details: Fra/ 100 mins/ (no cert).

Could you ever imagine doing the bold thing with your mother? No? Thought not. But that's the frankly unnerving premise of Christophe Honore's bleakly nihilistic drama, Ma Mere, which sees Pierre (Louis Garrel) going to Gran Canaria for a summer on the beach with his old pair. Papa dearest soon heads off, but Pierre, who has always maintained a pretty distant relationship from his folks, gets the shock of his life when he discovers that his mother (Isabelle Huppert) has something of a wild side and is taken to partying and getting up to all sorts of craziness with her younger cohorts (Emma 'daughter of Antoine' de Caunes and Joana Priess). Things take on a whole new level of freakiness as Pierre is drawn into a web of sexual intrigue with his rather screwed up mother, who seems eager to take things onto a whole new level of dysfunction with her son...
Adapted from a - not surprisingly - wildly controversial Georges Bataille novel, Ma Mere seems to revel in its ability to shock, and push the boundaries of taste as far as possible. It's an undeniably good looking movie with a couple of brave performances from Isabelle Huppert and Louis Garrel at the heart of this complicated relationship, but there's no sense of justification for the narcissism of the characters while the director's muddled message gets lost in a sea of wanton taboo busting.

Review by Garreth Murphy