Mathias Honore Movies

A retired, wheelchair-bound singer and her best friend bond over their troubled pasts during a road-trip to Memphis. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Writer/director Olivier Dahan (Crimson Rivers II) helmed La Vie en Rose, the screen biopic of tragic French songstress Edith Piaf. Marion Cotillard portrays Piaf, the superstar once raised as a young girl by her grandmother in a Normandy bordello, then discovered on a French street corner -- as a complete unknown -- by cabaret proprietor Louis Leplée (Gérard Depardieu). The film segues breezily between various episodes from Piaf's life -- such as her lover, French boxer Marcel Cerdan's (Jean-Pierre Martins) championship bout in mid-'40s New York; her period in Hollywood during the '50s; Piaf's abandonment as a young girl by her contortionist father (and earlier by her mother, a street singer); her brushes with the law as an adult; and her 1951 car accident and subsequent morphine addiction that caused her to age well beyond her years and left her barely mobile; and, through it all, her ability (like Billie Holiday) to funnel personal tragedy and emotional struggles into her vocalizations -- dazzling audiences in the process. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Sylvia (Isabelle Huppert) is a 40-year-old prostitute who works on the streets in Nice. Her teenage daughter Laurence (Maud Forget), whom she had abandoned years before, visits her apartment unexpectedly while Sylvia is being beaten by two thugs. One of the thugs is killed in the resulting melee, and the two women flee to the French countryside. Sylvia tries to find her ex-husband with whom she had a son, and her daughter tries to connect with her despite Sylvia's reluctance. They meet the mysterious fugitive Joshua (Pascal Greggory) who joins them. Meanwhile, Sylvia confronts her troubled past and tries to make sense of her life. ~ Todd Kristel, Rovi

A woman learns to care for others when she's forced to help people on the wrong side of the law in this drama. Marie-Line (Muriel Robin) is a single woman in her mid-forties who oversees the cleaning crew at a large office building. On the job, Marie-Line is all business, with no patience for laziness and no tolerance for employees who do less than a perfect job. But Marie-Line's bosses are in the midst of a money crunch and they've cut back on her budget, so when several of her employees quit, she has to find new cleaners willing to work for a lower wage. Marie-Line soon finds new workers willing to work hard for low pay, but there's a catch -- most of them are illegal aliens, smuggled into France from Africa, Albania, or the Middle East, and when police begin asking questions about Marie-Line's new cleaners, she has to scramble to cover for them. Marie-Line also discovers that many of her new hires have children they can't afford to leave with sitters or day care, so she finds herself helping to look after the kids, which brings out a compassionate side of her that she has spent much of life trying to keep hidden. Muriel Robin's performance in Marie-Line earned her a Best Actress nomination at the 2001 Cesar Awards (the French Academy Awards). ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This realistic and disturbingly grim French drama centers on a May/December romance that goes tragically awry resulting in a brutal murder. The dark tale begins in Dunkirk where police inspectors attempt to reconstruct the murder of Frederique who is found sodomized by a broomstick and stabbed to death on a kitchen table. The killer is Christophe who stands around in total, numb shock. It is Frederique's teenage daughter who tells of the terrible romance in a statement to police. Christophe was 28 when he met the ten-years-older Frederique at a wedding. Both successful professionals, sparks fly and soon begin courting. Eventually they become lovers, but are only briefly happy before large fissures appear in their relationship. Christophe loves her, but does not want an exclusive relationship. Frederique, who has already been twice divorced wants more and becomes bitter when it doesn't happen. They fight and it is during their break up that the tragedy ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The gritty, grungy lives of urban teens provide the focus of this taut drama. This film is the last in the "Tous les Garcons et les Filles de Leur Age" series which profiles the teen eras of nine prominent directors. This film is set in Paris, 1990. Zakari, though only 13-years old, is running for his life after he accidently shot a gang member who was teasing him. His older sister Max-Laure, a shaky drug addict, tries to help him. Meanwhile, Zak's brother Samy gets ready to play red roulette, a suicidal game of running a series of red lights at high speeds. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi