Stand­ing Tall – first look review

It’s stir­ring in the con­text of the recent UK elec­tion results to watch a Cannes open­ing film that is a hat-tip to social wel­fare – specif­i­cal­ly the judi­cial net­work that sur­rounds and sup­ports out-of-con­trol youths. For­get the monied grandeur of last year’s Grace of Mona­co, direc­tor Emmanuelle Bercot is focused on the ordi­nary inte­ri­ors and relent­less back-and-forths that make up over a decade in the life of Mal­ony (new­com­er Rod Paradot).

The result is a piece of cin­e­ma that defi­ant­ly ducks any moment of epiphany or rev­e­la­tion. The end­less whirring of the plot fits the end­less whirring of the social task at hand for those in com­pas­sion­ate roles. Bercot’s stu­dious com­mit­ment to relay­ing a tread­mill real­i­ty at times tasks the atten­tion span. Yet for the most part, Stand­ing Tall refresh­es through its lack of refreshment.

Mal­ony is an easy boy to dis­like. His impul­sive reac­tion to sit­u­a­tions that agi­tate him is vio­lence. The ​‘tables pushed over’ count is high here. He flies at peo­ple as eas­i­ly as if they were objects. Hin­der­ing him is his irre­spon­si­ble, reck­less moth­er, Sèver­ine, played with endear­ing rel­ish by Sara Foresti­er, who has roughed up her teeth to play a char­ac­ter who earnest­ly enjoys the thrill of rid­ing in a stolen car that’s being dri­ven by her under­age son. Foresti­er steals every scene she’s in, giv­ing depth to a young, dope-fiend moth­er who loves not wise­ly but well. Along with Malony’s younger broth­er, Toni, she makes up his fam­i­ly unit. That is until she scream­ing­ly dumps him, aged six, on children’s judge Flo­rence Blaque (Cather­ine Deneuve) – in the process bring­ing a more respon­si­ble matri­arch onto the case.

“We aren’t here to like you but to help you,” says Judge Blaque, sum­maris­ing the func­tion of wel­fare while show­ing Bercot’s aware­ness that her lead char­ac­ter is not com­pet­ing for any ​‘trou­bled but love­able’ awards. It’s a treat to see Deneuve, the long-reign­ing queen of French cin­e­ma, as a com­pas­sion­ate hardass whose word is law. It’s an inter­est­ing and chal­leng­ing role that requires her to use dif­fer­ent mus­cles than the arch com­ic sen­si­tiv­i­ties that François Ozon loves to har­ness. Traces of brisk irony remain in her pro­nounce­ments on human behav­iour but this is sec­ondary, tonal­ly, to her sense of fair play. Where pos­si­ble she choos­es the least harsh mea­sures as pun­ish­ment for Malony’s delin­quent behav­iour. Car theft leads him to a pas­toral juve­nile home and the assis­tance of a sec­ond guardian angel: the com­mit­ted but imper­fect and under­stand­ably frus­trat­ed coun­sel­lor, Yann (Benoît Magimel).

Stand­ing Tall is dri­ven by blunt exchanges. Bercot repeats the pat­tern of off­hand ser­mon­is­ing met by foul-mouthed resis­tance. Malony’s behav­iour is always threat­en­ing to blow him out of the lim­bo of minor-league juvie pun­ish­ments into seri­ous ret­ri­bu­tion as he turns 16 – and then 17 – with only mild improve­ments to his con­duct. A sex­u­al encounter with a teacher’s daugh­ter tests the bounds of audi­ence faith in a per­son with such default aggres­sion but while there are no touchy-feely cli­max­es – there are sub­tle changes that redeem the efforts of the sys­tem involved in con­tain­ing him. Cam­era action and a few mem­o­rable music choic­es mim­ic his inter­nal rest­less­ness and the wild mis­trust that lurks beneath like a coiled spring.

He is a twitchy son-of-a-bitch. What do we do with peo­ple like him? The con­ser­v­a­tive answer is cut the cord, flip the switch, let him sink. This film’s answers are alter­na­tive but nev­er naïve. There are no manip­u­la­tive emo­tion­al suck­er-punch­es. This is an obser­va­tion of the chaos-response sys­tem involved in car­ing for a tear­away kid. There will be inevitable com­par­isons to Xavier Dolan’s Mom­my, espe­cial­ly as Par­dot (like Antoine Oliv­er-Pilon) has a shock of white-blonde hair, but above being a char­ac­ter dra­ma this is a film about a social ser­vice, as tes­ti­fied by the final shot which lingers, not on a per­son, but on the judi­cial build­ing that shapes Malony’s fate.