My thoughts on Petite Maman (2021)

French director Céline Sciamma’s latest film is about eight-year old Nelly, who has just lost her grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother’s childhood home. She explores the surrounding woods and the treehouse where her mother used to play, and meets a girl of her own age in the woods, building a treehouse.

I realise I’m a bit late to the party with this one, given it came out in France almost a year ago, but I recently watched it and just wanted to give my thoughts. Admittedly, I wasn’t a huge fan of Céline Sciamma’s previous film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire (which is blasphemous I know), but I do really love 2007’s Water Lilies. Petite Maman though is on a whole new level in my book. In just 72 minutes, with just a handful of actors and a couple of locations, Sciamma creates an incredible meditation on the everlasting themes of love, loss, grief and familial bonds. It is a truly moving tale, that moves at a beautiful pace. The shortness of it could trick you into thinking that it may get rushed in parts, but each plot point unfolds perfectly, with its sweetness lasting the whole runtime.

The tender, soft storytelling is welded together by the incredibly delicate performances of Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz, some of the best child acting I am likely to ever see I’m sure. Neither performance is big or loud, they are very quiet, but portray the innocence of youth, especially surrounding death and growing up, in a beautifully authentic manner.

The film hits the perfect notes throughout tonally, and the performances help so much in achieving what Sciamma wants thematically. She never shies away from the deeply sad things, but also presents such a kind and positive outlook on the acceptance of these things, with the idea that the memories we have will last forever. Sometimes when films are stripped down to the fundamentals you remember just how powerful cinema can be, and that’s exactly what Sciamma’s latest film did for me. A simple and very human take on such complex issues of life, with an amazing poignance and lasting message of everything will be okay.

Those are my thoughts and feelings on Petite Maman anyway. I wanted to be quite vague throughout this as to not give away any spoilers, as I’d implore you to watch this knowing as little as possible about the story. If you haven’t seen it, I couldn’t recommend it enough.