Soon after their mother dies in the 1980’s siblings Anne and Tania are sorting through her belongings when they come across a box of old photographs that they had never seen before. Anne, the older of the two is a film director, and is positively intrigued by this discovery. Their mother had always been deliberately evasive about her past, and had never really explained why she and their father had survived a prison camp in World War 2, only to separate and divorce in the years that followed.The story that Anne uncovers that she wants to film, and is the main body of the movie, is an intriguing melodrama that starts immediately after the war. Her parents Michel and Lena, are newlyweds and they move into a home over their fledgling tailor business in Lyon which has been funded in part by the Communist Party that Michel is a fervent member of. They are both Ukrainian by birth but have been raised in France. Soon after Lena gives birth to Anne, Michel’s long-lost adult brother turns up on their doorstep. Well, they think he is Jean, but as Michel hasn’t seen him since he was just 9 years old and had assumed that he hadn’t survived the War, he actually has trouble recognising him.
Even though Jean’s story about his recent past doesn’t quite ring true, they take him in to live with them anyway. Wherever Jean is, it would appear that the mysterious stranger Sacha is not far behind, and he ends up being employed in their tailors store. For a new arrival in Town, Jean surprisingly has a great many local connections which he uses, amongst other things, to make Michel’s business very successful. Whilst the older brother divides his time between his flourishing shop and his Party activities, Jean spends his day wooing Lena who very quickly falls for her handsome brother-in-law.
There is a secondary story strand that involves their friend Madeleine who is quite openly cheating on her older husband who is the local Communist Party leader. This seems to be a potential precursor as what will happen to Lena if she went public with her affair, however writer/director Diane Kurys who based this all on the story on her own family, takes a different track when she eventually reveals the real reason that Lena and Michel got married which throws an entirely different light on everything.
This rather enjoyable post-war romance drama with its political intrigue is a quintessential French old-fashioned ‘women’s picture’ that will delight everyone who likes this genre. Kurys insures there is enough loose strands to the story for us to have to fill in some of the gaps ourselves as we try and work out if and why Lena will do the ‘right thing’ or just follow her heart.Great solid cast that turn in some convincing performances in an enjoyable beautifully crafted crowd-pleaser movie.
