“Jim’s Story” : it’s not easy to be a father in the Larrieu’s movies

After the Official Competition in 2005 (Paint or Make Love), the Quinzaine des Cinéastes in 2008 (The Trip to the Pyrénées) and the Séances de minuit in 2021 (Tralala), the Larrieu brothers return to Cannes in the Première selection, with a very tense and successful adaptation of Pierric Bailly’s novel of the same name, published by POL, the story of Aymeric (Karim Leklou, whose presence continues to impress us), a young man from the Haut-Jura (the mountain home of the two Lourdes filmmakers) who agrees to become the father of a child, Jim, whose father has left. 

Florence – Laetitia Dosch, in a not always sympathetic role -, Aymeric’s former colleague, is delighted. But ten years later, the father – Bertrand Belin, already seen in Tralala – comes back into Florence’s life, and gradually nibbles away at Aymeric’s territory. He considers himself Jim’s real father, having bottle-fed him, raised him and taught him everything he knows about life. 

Soon, Florence leaves for Canada with Jim and his father. Aymeric suffers, Aymeric goes on living, “rebuilding his life”, as they say, the episodic ties with Jim having gradually weakened. Then one day, Jim, now an adult, unexpectedly arrives at Aymeric’s home, where he now lives happily with Olivia (Sara Giraudeau). And the Larrieus, with their renowned directing talent, concoct a heartbreakingly modest reunion scene (as in A Real Man for example), which turns into a confrontation.

Ever since their very first film, Summer’s End in 1999, which was unjustly forgotten as if it had never existed, the question of paternity has been a recurring theme in the Larrieu’s romantic cinema, which is so original in French cinema, like a pebble in the shoe that sometimes disappears and then stubbornly returns. Here, there’s no doubt about the father’s identity, nor too much about his function. Rather, it’s about the passage of time, the loss and reunion of people, the sadness of life, and the determination to carry on, whatever the cost. It’s a beautiful film.