Movie review: The Well Digger's Daughter | canada.com

The Well Digger?s Daughter

Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Nicolas Duvauchelle

Directed and written by: Daniel Auteuil

Parental guidance: Mature theme

Running time: 107 minutes

Rating: 3? stars out of 5

(In French with English subtitles)

There?s a quality to the countryside of southern France ? the pure yellows of the sunlight, perhaps, or the easy red poppies blowing in fields of long grasses ? that evokes a feeling of richness. It?s not necessarily a place of joie de vivre, but there?s a calming mood of savoir-faire: here is a place in which the people, the landscape, the food, not to mention the faded floral wallpaper, are at least coherent.
It?s probably the only place that a film like The Well Digger?s Daughter can make sense. It?s a sort of comic melodrama in which love blossoms in picturesque streams and stubborn old men melt into sentimental forgiveness with a sort of amour fou that?s a combination of history, pride and a Gallic shrug of resignation.
It stars Daniel Auteuil, making his directorial debut in auspicious surroundings: the film is a remake of a 1940 movie from author/filmmaker Marcel Pagnol who also wrote Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, the movies in which Auteuil became famous.
The water is flowing here as well. Auteuil plays Pascal Amoretti, a proud and honest digger of wells in pre-Second World War France. He?s a widower with six daughters, a minor tragedy that?s ameliorated by his reluctant (and not very well hidden) pride: Pascal dotes on his girls, even though a son would be the thing to have.
He dotes mostly on his eldest, Patricia (Astrid Berges-Frisbey, one of those full-lipped beauties who populate every corner of France, if you believe its cinema.) She?s 18, and he?s hoping to marry her off to Felipe (Kad Merad), his sweet, sad-eyed co-worker, a man of decent melancholy but not much in the looks department.
But Patricia has already fallen into the swoon of Jacques (Nicolas Duvauchelle, an almost comically handsome leading man in the manner of Alain Delon). He?s the son of the town?s richest man, the shopkeeper, and you can tell from his devilish grin that he?s not only trouble, but he?s the kind of trouble that even nice girls like to get into.
And Patricia is a nice girl. Auteuil has an old-fashioned notion of filmmaking and the erotic subtext of The Well Digger?s Daughter has the delicacy of some Hollywood film of the Production Code era. We don?t see anything happen, but we know when it does. ?I?m not myself any more,? says Patricia. ?I?m someone else.?
Then, as happens in such films, big events intervene. Jacques is called off to war, promptly goes missing in action, and Patricia is left with a growing problem that will embarrass the family in front of her village. Pascal, the doting father, becomes a man concerned with social appearances ? undoubtedly an authentic view of the times ? and something must be done to salvage the family honour.
Of course, it?s not that simple. There is a missed meeting, a burned letter, a broken promise and all the melodramatic touches that complicate such tales of morality and love.
However, Auteuil approaches it with a half-smile: the movie seems to be telling us that this is meant to be taken seriously, perhaps, but not solemnly. Pascal?s conversations with Felipe have the ripe and teasing edge of old friends, and his confrontation with Jacques? parents (Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Sabine Azema) has the bracingly straightforward frankness one might expect from a digger of wells. Pascal is a man who goes straight down until he hits water.
?It?s wise to be wary of people who sell tools and never use them,? he tells the merchant.
The Well Digger?s Daughter plays like something by Dickens, to whom Marcel Pagnol is often compared, complete with the rescued child and the coincidence of happy meeting. Contrived but beautiful, it has a sumptuous sweetness that?s almost irresistible. They don?t make them like this any more.

Source: http://o.canada.com/2012/12/10/movie-review-the-well-diggers-daughter/

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