The Gazette (Montreal)
March 11, 2005 Friday
Final Edition

Stitch by little stitch: At first seeming just muted and mundane,
this simple story about a pregnant teen who becomes an embroiderer
gradually builds the power to sweep you away

by BRENDAN KELLY, The Gazette

Brodeuses
Rating 4
Starring: Lola Naymark, Ariane Ascaride
Playing: in French at Ex-Centris; in French with English subtitles at
AMC.
Parents’ guide: Not for kids, adult subject-matter.

– – –

Brodeuses, the first feature from French writer-director Eleonore
Faucher, is one of those films that sneaks up on you. At first, you
wonder what’s going on – or, rather, why so little is going on, on
screen. It all seems kind of muted and mundane. Then, bang, it hits
you and, for reasons you don’t fully understand, you’re just swept up
emotionally in what is, in many ways, a remarkably simple story.

That’s what makes Brodeuses – A Common Thread, in English – so
powerful. Unlike so many first-time directors, Faucher doesn’t try to
be too ambitious, to do too much. She tells a small story effectively
but with few ostentatious flourishes. That, at least in the old days,
used to be called good filmmaking.

Claire (Lola Naymark) is a sullen, insolent 17-year-old who’s peeved
at the world – and it’s not just the usual adolescent angst. Claire
is five months pregnant and she is not at all sure what to do about
this state of affairs.

She hasn’t told her family or any of her friends. At the grocery
store where she slaves away as a checkout clerk, she lies to her
pals, telling them she has cancer and that she’s gaining weight
because of side-effects of the treatment she is receiving. She is
barely on speaking terms with her parents and, though she clearly has
a soft-spot for him, she gives her little brother a hard time.

Things begin to change slowly when she gets a job as an apprentice
embroiderer for Madame Melikian (Ariane Ascaride), an Armenian woman
who provides embroidery for some of the top fashion houses of Paris.
Mme Melikian is in a terrible depression, has been ever since her
only son died in a motorcycle accident, and at first the two troubled
women are barely communicating. But gradually, an unlikely friendship
develops.

Newcomer Naymark is just superb as the troubled teen. For the first
hour, Claire is totally irritating. You just want to shout at her –
“Stop all the pouting and whining.” But slowly, you start to like
her, to appreciate her quiet resilience. It doesn’t hurt that she’s
beautiful, with gorgeous long, curly red hair. Ascaride is also just
right, giving Mme Melikian dignity and real character.