★★★☆☆
VIRGINIE Efira commands the screen in this fairly lightweight but nevertheless enjoyable blend of French comedy, drama and romance from writer-director Justine Triet (Age Of Panic).
Efira, pictured left, plays the eponymous criminal lawyer and single mother-of-two who splits her time between her hectic home life and equally demanding job that has recently taken an unexpected turn when she finds herself defending her friend Vincent (Melvil Poupaud) accused of stabbing his partner Eve (Alice Daquet).
But it’s a film concerned just as much with turmoil – stilted sexual exploits in her cluttered apartment with men she meets online and a yearning for genuine human connection that can fit in with her messy life.
It’s one of those films that relies on the heavy lifting of its star and on that front Efira shines bright. She has such an instantly welcoming and compelling screen presence – she also recently impressed in Paul Verhoeven’s controversial revenge thriller Elle – but here adds layers of unexpected poignancy and even brittleness that gives the character a rounded believability in the face of sometimes overly constructed scenarios.
Despite its heavy romantic leanings, that’s actually the least interesting aspect of the film. This is perhaps because the would-be love interest comes in the form of Samuel (Vincent Lacoste), a mop-haired former drug dealer and previous client 15 years her junior who eventually talks his way into becoming her new live-in assistant.
It’s an improbable pairing but that contradictory nature is never dealt with beyond the surface and renders the romantic subplot somewhat flat. It works best when it either explores the pressures of 21st-century womanhood and the challenges of motherhood via intermittent therapy sessions or takes on a playful, even kooky quality that’s charming without tipping over into annoying.
While nowhere near as frothy and heightened as Efira’s relatively recent other rom-com Up For Love, it’s not against stepping into the farcical if the mood strikes; the playful score that accompanies scenes of her rushing to catch an appointment or a performing monkey being used as part of witness testimony in her big case.
It’s a shame it feels the need to revert back to more familiar territory, particularly in reaching for a conclusion that smacks of Hollywood conventionality. But it has the power to throw some home-truth curveballs with an enjoyable lightness of touch that makes them most welcome.
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