Full Description
It’s 1987 in one of Paris’s notorious banlieues, the impoverished suburbs where France has pushed its Jews, Arabs and other unwelcome members of its former colonies. Trapped in a Brutalist apartment complex, Stéphanie “Fifi” Mortier is an aspiring dancer, a beautiful but vulnerable Jewish teenager fighting long odds in search of a better life. In its dance sequences, this comedy/drama bears a strong resemblance to Flashdance, complete with torn leotards, leg warmers and an excellent 1980s soundtrack. But actress Doria Achour proves a French Molly Ringwald, and director Sylvie Ohayon the French John Hughes, as both bring remarkable sensitivity and a comedic touch to this moving coming-of-age tale. The film is autobiographical, based on Ohayon’s memoir of the same name. Ohayon doesn’t shy from tough questions about race or class. Mortier faces real and scary obstacles in a violent, anti-Semitic stepfather, a drug-dealing boyfriend and an absentee mother. The uplifting moments, the film’s strongest, come in the intimate exchanges between her and her friends. Indeed, the scene where Mortier watches her best friend Fatima’s family wrestle with a sheep in their bathtub during the Muslim holiday of Eid tops anything Hughes shot in the high school halls for The Breakfast Club.
—Emily Kaiser Thelin
