COMIC DRAMA; 1hr 50min (French with subtitles)
STARRING: Noémie Lvovsky, Samir Guesmi, Yolande Moreau
Back pedalling: Lvovsky
“If we had the chance to do it all again,” to quote the Streisand lament, “tell me, would we? Could we?” Forty-year-old Parisian washout Camille (director and co-writer Lvovsky) gets that magical, Peggy Sue Got Married–themed opportunity when she passes out at a New Year’s Eve party and comes to in 1985, aged 16. In a neat twist on time-reversal shtick, even though Camille’s appearance remains the same — which is to say, wearied by a life of disappointment — everyone sees her as the girl she was.
Can she fix mistakes, with the Byronic boy she will marry and divorce (Guesmi) and with her caring, stroke-victim mother (Moreau)? Let’s just say she gives it her best shot — and that out-manoeuvring the past isn’t a failsafe option.
Her treatment cries out for a trim, but Lvovsky is so happily non-plasticised that Camille’s backwards journey is unexpectedly poignant. Skittering around in girly skirts and leg-warmers, she looks exactly like what she is: a middle-aged woman with a headful of questions, confronting the ceaseless ticking of mortality.
