Broth­er and Sis­ter – first-look review

On a good day, and when the stars are cor­rect­ly aligned, Mar­i­on Cotil­lard is the great­est actor work­ing in the world today. This is, of course, an entire­ly sub­jec­tive opin­ion, but when she is able to land mate­r­i­al wor­thy of her for­mi­da­ble tal­ents as a per­former, not to men­tion a con­cen­trat­ed nexus for big screen emo­tion, there real­ly is no-one bet­ter on the field.

She is expert at con­vey­ing a sense of inner tragedy, wield­ing her expres­sive exte­ri­or to chan­nel wells of intense and sin­cere sen­ti­ment, all drawn from a vivid­ly imag­ined, inte­ri­or world. In short, she has the abil­i­ty to cry and smile and you have no idea which emo­tion is in the advantage.

In Broth­er and Sis­ter, Arnaud Desplechin’s return to vin­tage-lev­el fam­i­ly ensem­ble (and up there with his break­out 2007 film, A Christ­mas Tale), he gifts Cotil­lard with one of her most psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly tumul­tuous and mul­ti­fac­eted roles to date: that of a laud­ed stage actress named Alice who is engaged in a bit­ter, decades-long rival­ry with her author broth­er, Louis (Melvil Poupaud).

The film’s open­ing scene shows her weep­ing as she attempts and fails to recon­nect with Louis on the occa­sion of his young son’s untime­ly death. He yells at her, explodes, eject­ing her from his house and his life for rea­sons that are nev­er clear­ly stat­ed. Lat­er, in a flash for­ward of half-a-decade, we learn she has sued him for defama­tion, a result of the poi­son prose used to feath­er his crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed lit­er­ary output.

Yet Desplechin drops in these morsels of con­text with­out ever allow­ing a char­ac­ter to artic­u­late, with total clar­i­ty, what it is that is churn­ing the bile that is caus­ing such extreme ran­cour. Their sense of abject loathing is so acute, that when they do acci­den­tal­ly run into each oth­er, she instant­ly drops to the floor in a fit of vapours, while he swings his coat and dash­es off like Drac­u­la in the face of encroach­ing sunlight.

Broth­er and Sis­ter is about how dif­fi­cult it is to remem­ber the rea­sons for hat­ing some­one. And even if you do remem­ber, it pon­ders whether the pun­ish­ment we lev­el on the per­pe­tra­tor always fits the crime. If, indeed, a ​“crime” even exists. Alice and Louis have the resolve of their ani­mos­i­ty test­ed when their father and step-moth­er are involved in a bizarre traf­fic acci­dent, leav­ing them both in crit­i­cal shape.

The unfath­omable pain of sud­den death is con­trast­ed with the more pro­tract­ed and cere­bral accep­tance of a par­ent slip­ping onto the home stretch of life, and this tox­ic rela­tion­ship between sib­lings caus­es the pair great addi­tion­al suf­fer­ing. All the while, Desplechin makes sure to infer that these are two peo­ple who, in their inter­ests, abil­i­ties and per­son­al­i­ties, should be very close, and there are some beau­ti­ful and provoca­tive scenes lat­er on which hint towards the extent of their for­ma­tive bond.

To empha­sise the extent of the pain expe­ri­enced by his leads, Desplechin depicts their attempts at numb­ing the per­pet­u­al sad­ness through chem­i­cal means, and also the con­so­la­tions of reli­gion, as Catholic Louis hap­haz­ard­ly joins his opi­um-free­bas­ing shrink at the Syn­a­gogue (in leather shoes, tut tut) to cel­e­brate Yom Kippur.

Alice, mean­while, requires lots and lots of strong pills to help her con­tin­ue per­form­ing in a play while all the real dra­ma is hap­pen­ing off stage. The film is strong on the idea that the con­stant search for ways to sti­fle suf­fer­ing and psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma can actu­al­ly serve to com­pound that suf­fer­ing, and pro­long it rather than bring it to a head.

This is Desplechin at his most relaxed and mas­ter­ful, and the plea­sure watch­ing him as he sashays through the sto­ry and around the vast ensem­ble of char­ac­ters while always keep­ing his eye on the the­mat­ic prize is immense indeed. His writ­ing pro­vides the sce­nario with a run­away momen­tum, and he even man­ages to frame the expect­ed con­clu­sion in a way that is lyri­cal rather than per­func­to­ry. It’s Cotil­lard canon, and one for the director’s top tier, with­out doubt.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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