La Mif

Sarah Gavron​’s Rocks had neglect­ed teenage girls telling a grit­ty but opti­mistic tale of a makeshift fam­i­ly. Fred Baillif’s sim­i­lar­ly-styled La Mif ini­tial­ly appears to be its Swiss coun­ter­part, yet slow­ly reveals itself as a far bleak­er affair.

The film , which is slang for fam­i­ly (“The Fam”), is set in a res­i­den­tial care home for teenagers, one that author­i­ties have to be remind­ed is ​“not a prison”. Those who live there attempt to find sanc­tu­ary and com­mu­ni­ty with one anoth­er, but an inci­dent which breaks the laws around teenage con­sent trig­gers a chain reac­tion that widens the cracks in the system.

Where La Mif works best is in the moments of reflec­tion between girls talk­ing about how they end­ed up where they are, con­fess­ing what they feel ashamed of and try­ing to man­u­fac­ture the famil­ial inti­ma­cy they crave. The path to res­i­den­tial care isn’t a hap­py one, but to see child­hood bru­tal­i­ty laid out so non­cha­lant­ly makes for almost unbear­able viewing.

The resid­ual trau­ma the young actress­es are able to por­tray, which man­i­fests in myr­i­ad ways, is pow­er­ful in its under­state­ment. Where the film over­plays its hand is try­ing to con­nect these sto­ries to the admin­is­tra­tors, social work­ers and larg­er crises with­in the care sys­tem. Those tan­gents feel at best super­flu­ous and at worst, white saviourism.

There is a lack of cathar­sis in the con­clu­sion which, to the film’s cred­it, feels apt. It’s a pow­er­ful sto­ry with no easy way for­ward for any­one concerned.

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