Betty Fisher et autres histoires (2001)
Directed by Claude Miller

Film Review

After two of his strangest films, La Classe de neige (1998) and La Chambre des magiciennes (2000), director Claude Miller returns to more mundane territory with this intense portrayal of a fragile mother-daughter relationship.  This part of the film is by far the most interesting and believable, thanks largely to first-rate acting performances from Sandrine Kiberlain and Nicole Garcia who respectively play the love-starved daughter Betty and the guilt-stricken by mentally unbalanced mother Margot.

What mars the film is the way in which the narrative is fragmented into a number of weakly coupled story strands which ultimately come together in a somewhat unconvincing pulp-fiction style ending.   The film is heavily unbalanced, with just too many secondary characters vying for our attention, with not one of them being as remotely interesting as Betty or her mother.  In a more conventional thriller, this would not have been a problem.  The fault is that, with the film's shockingly effective beginning, Miller deliberately set out to make Betty and her mother the central focus of the film - to the extent that all other subplots are almost entirely superfluous.

Another problem with the film, which probably stems from its unsatisfying narrative structure, is that it unsure whether it is a thriller or a drama.  Towards the end, the plot relies so heavily on coincidence that it comes dangerously close to farce (particularly the sub-plot with the hopeless crook Alex, which is presumably intended purely for comic relief).

Despite its obvious narrative weaknesses, Betty Fisher et autres histoires is an entertaining and generally likeable film.   Miller's cinematic approach has certainly changed in recent years, and his mastery of the digital hand-held camera is partly responsible for the film's unusual visual feel.  The slightly shaky camerawork serves to emphasise the emotional turbulence between Betty and her mother, although even this is perhaps taken too far in some places.

Film Synopsis

After making her name as a writer in the United States, Betty Fisher returns to France with her four-year-old son Joseph, leaving her partner Édouard in New York.  She moves into a house in a respectable Parisian suburb and invites her mother, Margot, to come and live with her.  Betty's strained relationship with her mother is not helped by the fact that the latter suffers from porphyria, a condition that causes her to behave irrationally.  Joseph is rushed to hospital after falling from a window but he dies not long after from his injuries.  Concerned by her daughter's hysterical reaction to this news, Margot presents her with another little boy, pretending it to be the grandson of a friend of hers who asked her to look after the child for a while.  In truth, the boy is a stranger, José, that Margot kidnapped without knowing she was doing anything wrong.  The boy's mother, a bartender named Carole, is thrown into a panic by his disappearance and a press campaign is soon in full swing to find the missing child.  When Margot goes away, Betty finds herself unable to return José to his mother and a delicate bond develops between the grieving mother and the kidnapped infant.  Then Édouard appears from out of the blue.  When he learns that the boy in Betty's care has been abducted he threatens his wife with blackmail.  Meanwhile, Carole's present partner François suspects his rival Alex may be the one who kidnapped José and makes up his mind to kill him...