Review: 'Petite Maman' a Masterpiece on Childhood and Grief

When someone we love dies, we always wish we could have one more day, yearning for even one more moment with them. A unique time-travel fantasy film, "Petite Maman" beautifully explores this longing.

Written and directed by visionary lesbian filmmaker Céline Sciamma – my favorite filmmaker ("Portrait of a Lady on Fire," "Girlhood," "Tomboy") – her emotional masterpiece is a delicately tender elegy on grief in childhood, time, and a celebration of the bonds of family, specifically mother-daughter relationships.

The film premiered at the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival; I had the pleasure of seeing it at Independent Film Festival Boston (IFFBoston) last year. One of my top ten favorite films of 2021, it has haunted me ever since.

Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) is eight years old, and her maternal grandmother has just died. The film opens with Nelly saying goodbye to various older people in a nursing home, while her mother (Nina Meurisse) packs up her grandmother's room. Nelly later reveals her sadness at not having told her grandmother a "good" goodbye. Driving to Nelly's mother's childhood home, Nelly feeds her mom snacks and hugs her from the back seat, the camera remaining on her mom as Nelly's hands enter the frame – a sweet and striking scene.

Nelly and her mother and father (Stéphane Varupenne) pack up Nelly's grandmother's house. The next morning, Nelly's father informs her that mom left, returning when they're finished in about a week.

While playing outside, Nelly sees a young girl (Gabrielle Sanz), who looks eerily similar to herself. Waving, the girl asks for Nelly's help in dragging a branch to a hut. Nelly's mother had told her she played in a hut in the woods as a child; looking quizzical and suspicious, Nelly learns the girl's name is Marion, her mother's name. When Marion takes Nelly back to her house, it turns out to be Nelly's grandmother's house, but back in time. A visual cue shows the old wallpaper that Nelly's father had revealed. Her mother is now a child, too.

Panicking at first and running away (back to her father and the present-day house), Nelly later returns and she and Marion, the child version of her mother, spend time together. It's not a coincidence that this is the moment in time where the girls intersect: Both lost their grandmothers at the age of eight.

Nelly and Marion drink hot cocoa (Marion says she likes to make "cocoa islands" and eat them) and play board games and murder mystery games. They build Marion's hut together; in a wonderful frame with the camera behind them, the two girls hug each other while gazing at the hut.

Through these interactions, Nelly grieves the loss of her grandmother and bonds with her mother. Seeing her mother as a child facilitates Nelly's understanding of her mother as a person. It can be difficult to think of our parents as people who existed outside the parameters of parenthood. Marion is able to relive her time as a child, and spend more time with her mother.

Just as I fell into the rhythms of the characters, the film ends, mirroring real life.

A masterful filmmaker, Sciamma's oeuvre exhibits striking visuals, powerful performances, and queer themes. According to the press notes, Hayao Miyazaki's films inspired Sciamma and the outdoor scenes were shot in her childhood town.

I loved the performances of Joséphine Sanz and Gabrielle Sanz, sisters in real life. Sciamma always respects children in her films. She excels at showing children as full people, never diminishing their lives or emotions. So often, child actors feel overly precocious or stiff with artificiality in their cadence and gestures. But that's not the case here, and is never the case with Sciamma's films, as she elicits naturalistic performances. At "Vulture," Angelica Jade Bastién writes about "Petite Maman" that Sciamma treats children characters "with the humanity they deserve."

While this is Sciamma's first film that doesn't explicitly explore queerness, a queer lens remains. The narrative occurs amongst a biological family, yet a queer reading of the film – bolstered by the fantastical elements transporting daughter and mother to the roles of friends, almost like sisters – highlights the importance of chosen family, which is crucial for so many of us in the LGBTQIA community.

The gorgeous cinematography by Claire Mathon – one of my favorite directors of photography ("Portrait of a Lady on Fire," "Atlantique," "Spencer") – and color palette of muted hues punctuated by vibrant primary colors evoke a children's storybook or fairytale awash in painterly water colors, evocative of nostalgia and fond memories.

A gentle and quietly powerful story, "Petite Maman" whimsically captures the wonder of childhood, the ephemeral nature of time, and the healing capacity of love and connection.

"Petite Maman" opens in theaters on Friday, April 22, 2022.