Natacha Régnier Movies

The French-language psychological drama Boxes - which represents veteran actress Jane Birkin's (Blow-up) directorial debut on a narrative feature - constitutes an extended, theatrically garrulous meditation on the rift of understanding inevitable between parents and children. In addition to directing, Birkin also stars, as Anna, a fiftysomething woman in the throes of menopause, who journeys to her family's summer home in Brittany and leafs through the boxes of the title, filled to the brims with mementos and tidbits of family history. As Anna pours over the contents, individuals from her life materialize before her eyes, including her venerable deceased father (Michel Piccoli), her three daughters by different men (Natacha Regnier, Lou Doillon and Adele Exarchopoulos), and her headstrong mother (Geraldine Chaplin). The journey into the past thus becomes a cerebral and philosophical meditation on familial relationships, and an exploration of such themes as love, faithfulness, betrayal, and changes wrought by the ravages of time. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

The crumbling relationships within a suburban Geneva family are detailed from three distinctly unique perspectives in Swiss director Jacob Berger's insightful family drama. As the rain falls heavy outside his family's modest Meyrin apartment, radio newsman Serge (Bruno Todeschini) rises from bed and prepares for another day at work. After waking his wife Pietra (Natacha Regnier) and his son Vlad (Louis Dussol), Serge gets behind the wheel and makes a quick stop by the apartment of his ravishing mistress Mathilde (Noemie Kocher). Distracted by the downpour on his way to work, the womanizing father runs into something with his car yet keeps driving. Later at work, Serge finds his mind continually drifting back to the incident and goes back to find out if anyone was injured. When nothing appears amiss, Serge and Mathilda go back to the married man's apartment for an invigorating bout of afternoon sex. Eventually, the action shifts to Pietra's perspective as she takes the bus to the museum where she works. Despite the fact that a rabid dog is loose in the building, Pietra boldly enters in a desperate bid to locate her missing cell phone. When Pietra returns home unexpectedly in the middle of the afternoon, the discovery she makes send her into a state of minor shock. Meanwhile, as young Vlad stakes out the nearby apartment building where a pretty classmate lives, he is surprised to see his father turn up on the scene. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

French helmer Lucas Belvaux's The Right of the Weakest - a stark kitchen sink drama with occasional and unpredictable flashes of humor - meditates on the question of when to resign oneself to a sad fate and when to buck the system, even if it means risking everything. This ensemble piece observes the perpetually flagging fortunes of several male steelworkers in a French industrial community whose one bright spot is a regular weekly card game. The men exist at varying levels of despair, but all are losers. They include: Jean Pierre (Patrick Descamps), a wheelchair-bound sad sack who must be carried to the card game; Robert, who lives in the same tenement and exhibits a propensity for waking up at odd hours and drinking himself into a stupor; and Marc (Lucas Belvaux), an assembly line worker at a beer factory whose job involves untangling bottles. Patrick (Eric Caravaca) qualifies as the most impressive of the group (which isn't saying much) - a househusband and college graduate, married and with a son, but one whose economic status sinks rapidly when his wife loses her only means of transportation to work. Ultimately, the men put their heads together and devise a wild method of escaping from the doldrums - which, though improbable, just might be crazy enough to work. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Director Chantal Akerman helmed this offbeat comedy about a mother and daughter who find themselves living together again for the first time in many years. Still reeling emotionally from the recent death of her husband, Catherine (Aurore Clément) has chosen to leave her old home and move in with her grown daughter, Charlotte (Sylvie Testud). While Charlotte is sympathetic, she's something less than enthusiastic; her mother's mood swings and the clutter of her collected belongings are cramping her home and her style, and when Catherine decides to revive her career as a piano teacher, the constant parade of youngsters bludgeoning the keyboard makes it all but impossible for Charlotte to complete her latest writing project. Catherine and Charlotte decide to look for more spacious living quarters, while Charlotte is also in search of her own office space. As a steady stream of prospective tenants check out their home, Charlotte makes friends with a pregnant woman looking for a new flat (Natacha Régnier), while her search for a space of her own brings Charlotte a relationship with a like-minded realtor (Jean-Pierre Marielle) and an unlikely collaborator in Michelle (Elsa Zylberstein), a poet who enjoys tinkering with Charlotte's prose. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

When the grown-up children of a missing parent are reunited with their father, they discover it raises more questions than it answers in a well-crafted mood piece from writer/director Anne Fontaine. Jean-Luc (Charles Berling) is a well-to-do physician whose practice is devoted to older patients, many of whom are forced to confront their fears about death. While Jean-Luc is used to dealing with such issues, they come home for him one day when he learns that his father has died. The news prompts Jean-Luc to look back at his younger days, and his difficult relationship with his dad, Maurice (Michel Bouquet), who ran out on his family when Jean-Luc was a boy and returned after he'd grown to adulthood with few explanations about where he'd gone (he became a volunteer physician in the Third World) and why he left his wife and children behind. Growing up in an air of uncertainty has had an impact on Jean-Luc's relationship with his wife Isa (Natacha Regnier); neither is certain of how to reach out to one another, and Jean-Luc sometimes seeks comfort in the arms of Myriem (Amira Casar), an assistant in his office. Maurice's absence also took its toll on Jean-Luc's brother, Patrick (Stephane Guillon), who deals with his anxieties by pursuing a career as a comic, while earning his keep as Jean-Luc's driver. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The third feature film of Giacomo Campiotti, previously the assistant director to Mario Monicelli, Il Tempo Dell'Amore (A Time to Love) is an omnibus film of three different love stories that take place in three different eras and locations. The common element is the theme: love causes a lot of pain. In the first episode, we are in South Africa at the turn of the century during the Boer war. Martha (Juliet Aubrey), a forty-year-old English woman, is on her way to visit her brother Thomas (Tam Williams), who is in the army, when the train is attacked by Boers. Peter (Ciaran Hinds), an English soldier, saves her life. This unexpected encounter leads to an impossible love, as Peter happens to be one of Thomas' footsoldiers. In the second story, Paris is under German occupation during the Second World War. Claire (Natacha Regnier), a young French musician, meets Gabriel (Ignazio Oliva), a Russian musician, during a concert performance. Their passionate love affair has limits because of the linguistic barriers, and what begins well ends in tragedy. In the last episode, we are in present-day Italy. Teenager Guiseppe is in a coma following an accident. His classmates take turns by his bedside, but when summer arrives, they all go away. Naty (Natalia Piatti), who is much younger than Guiseppe and somewhat of a tomboy, stays behind and visits him regularly, developing an attachment to the boy even though she knows that, when he recovers, he would not look at her. Il Tempo Dell'Amore tries to create a magical atmosphere in dealing with affairs of the heart, using dreams and nightmares to interpret moods. The first episode is the least successful in terms of building the relationship to its climax. The last episode is the best one, particularly because of excellent acting by Natalia Pitti, who is a natural. Campiotti co-wrote the script with his partner in his previous film, Like Two Crocodiles, the Russian playwright Alexander Adabachian, who has also worked as a screenwriter for Nikita Mikhalkov. Il Tempo Dell'Amore was in competition at the 1999 Locarno International Film Festival. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi

Elodie Bouchez and Natacha Regnier both won "Best Actress" honors at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival in this naturalistic drama about two women alienated from mainstream society. After a trio of short films, this is the feature directorial debut of 41-year-old French filmmaker Erick Zonca. With opening scenes reminiscent of Agnes Varda's Vagabond (1985), optimistic hobo Isa (Bouchez), with her life in her backpack, has a gritty existence on the road, going from one town to another through northern France, working factory jobs and selling cards. After she loses a garment-factory job, her withdrawn, near-catatonic co-worker Marie (Regnier) lets Isa share space in her Lille living quarters -- an apartment actually belonging to a hospitalized mother and daughter. Marie begins an affair with burly bouncer Charly (Patrick Mercado) before achieving an emotional breakthrough with sleazy, animalistic club-owner Chriss (Gregoire Colin). Meanwhile, Isa becomes fascinated with the girl who lived in the apartment but now lies in a coma at the hospital. The film combines handheld camerawork with a minimalist music score (Yann Thiersen) and documentary-like street sounds. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi