Review No.53: The Adopted

Sometimes the enjoyment of a film comes from an unexpected twist in the plot and that is definitely the case for Melanie Laurent's directorial debut The Adopted. Laurent is possibly best known on these shores for playing the cinema owner in Inglorious Basterds and here stars as Lisa one of two adopted sisters that the plot focuses on. In the same way as Melancholia did, The Adopted devotes half of the film to each sister starting with Marie Denarnaud's bookstore owner Marine and her budding romance with restaurant critic Alex. We learn early on that Marine's parents died when she was young and Lisa's mother fought to become her adopted mother as the two girls were already close. I felt at first that Alex and Marine's relationship would be a slow-burn affair and it would be a while till they got together however they soon end up in bed together and move in soon after. They go from loving to fighting to her moving out before the second half of the film switches to Lisa's story. In it we see a lonely single-mother glad of the relationship she has with Marine with whom she has spoken with every day for the last twenty years but is somewhat jealous of her sister's new romantic relationship as she won't be spending enough time with her and her son.

For the first half an hour or so of The Adopted I thought I knew what I was getting as it builds itself up as a quirky French love-story where all the characters have interesting jobs as musicians or critics and where everybody is happy all the time. The annoying quirks started to build as Marine and Alex decide to wear stupid masks every time they argue so they then would start laughing straight away. However then suddenly the film becomes more serious and that's when I started to enjoy The Adopted a lot more as it becomes a film about relationships and families while also exploring how much we actually think about the future. I've always enjoyed Laurent as an actor but here it was Denarnaud who was really the star of the show and her Marine was a joyous character even when the quirks got a little annoying. Laurent's direction, certainly in the latter part of the film, is also assured as several different camera angles reveal the character's thoughts and a really interesting scene involving Alex at a petrol station towards the end of The Adopted almost had me in tears. Despite the shift in tone everything stays very French with everybody reading, eating, singing and having sex a lot of the time. If you don't like French films about people being very French then The Adopted isn't for you but personally I found an unexpectedly moving film which I thought I'd figured out early on but which went on to surprise me a lot.

Verdict: Though it's quirky and very French the last two thirds of The Adopted are very enjoyable indeed so for that reason I'm going to give it 7/10