Katell Quillévéré’s first two pictures, Love Like Poison and Suzanne, established her as a film-maker of delicacy and grace. This third feature is based on the novel by Maylis de Kerangal, adapted by the director with veteran screenwriter Gilles Taurand.
It is every bit as beautifully made and intelligently acted as you might expect, with some wonderful visual imagery at the very beginning. Yet I was disappointed. The organ donation storyline is a readymade trope, bringing together disparate life stories; it creates its own internal narrative economy of donor and recipient. But it’s a rather Hollywoodised high concept, reminiscent of Alejandro González Iñárittu’s 21 Grams or even, frankly, Return to Me, a slushy romantic weepie from 2000 starring Minnie Driver. Those films had the idea of infringing the donor anonymity rules, tragi-romantically bringing together bereaved person and organ recipient. Heal the Living isn’t so brash. But the point is that we, the audience, know. We make the cosmic connection. It is heart-wrenching, yes – and a little glib.
Anne Dorval (the mother in Xavier Dolan’s Mommy) plays Claire, a woman suffering from a degenerative cardiac disorder; Bouli Lanners and Tahar Rahim play two hospital doctors whose fates will be intertwined with Claire’s and also with that of surf-mad teenager Simon (Gabin Verdet), whose surfing scenes at the very beginning are glorious. There is mystery and enchantment in the scenes Quillévéré creates as Simon cycles through dark city streets on the way to his early morning surf session.
I wished that the whole film could have been about him and his family – as in Nanni Moretti’s film The Son’s Room perhaps. But the film is all about the neat, polished mosaic of lives. It’s a film with emotional force, though less nuance and complexity than Quillévéré’s other work.
