Parents gather around the tatami, the mat where one practices the martial art of judo. On the mat, children wrestle and grunt, tugging at each other with giddy joy. Rachel (Virginie Efira) is one of the adults standing by the windows that frame the tatami as if it’s a gallery, her eyes moving swiftly from the little limbs flying up and down to the prepared hands of those around her. Mothers and fathers carry biscuits, fruits and sandwiches. Freshly refilled water bottles and colorful snacks hang from bags and pockets. Rachel’s pockets, however, are empty, her hands suddenly weighed by absence. This is the woman’s first taste of the unspoken agreements of parenthood, the communal knowledge gained through the repetitive patterns of a carefully mastered routine.
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Rachel is new to the ins and outs of parenting. The schoolteacher landed in the life of 4-year-old Leila (Callie Ferreira-Goncalves) by proxy after falling in love with the girl’s dad, Ali (Roschdy Zem), whom she met during guitar lessons. It is while carrying the clunky guitar cases that brought them together that the two share their first kiss, a passionate, hungry exchange between two people aware of how fruitless it is to play a game of disinterest. They lie in bed, bodies made warm by eager contact, and kiss some more. Touch some more. They laugh and play and exhale and, by the time climax has settled into torpor, Rachel wanders through Ali’s moonlit apartment, the fingers that recently roamed his back now flickering through busy shelves.
The shelves and all other corners of the apartment carry signs of Ali’s fatherhood: drawings held by magnets, toys mindlessly scattered on the floor, and bright spots of color popping from the otherwise dull decor of a single man’s flat. Rachel pauses for a brief moment, bare feet nested on the carpet, contemplating the two men she now understands Ali to be: the lover and the father. In that split second, a decision is made, and the woman walks back into the bedroom, to the arms of Ali the lover — but ready to embrace the thought of Ali the father.
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This dichotomy runs through Rebecca Zlotowski’s “Other People’s Children”, with the French director framing the romance as two love stories intertwined. If the love shared by Rachel and Ali was formed by fiery passion, the one between Rachel and Leila is built through tender care, the two tentatively prancing around one another as they navigate a relationship deprived of the sturdy benchmarks of traditional parenthood. Leila repeatedly interrogates her dad about Rachel’s constant presence, the handful of words softly uttered by the little girl bruising the teacher as if they were slaps. Rachel asks questions, too. Unanswerable, they linger in the air between the couple, gradually morphing into an ever-growing wedge that pushes apart what once felt ever so solid.
Zlotowski is protective of the nuanced nature of the issue at the heart of “Other People’s Children.” There is no need to vilify Ali to validate Rachel’s feelings of alienation. The same kindness is extended to Alice (Chiara Mastroianni), Leila’s mother, a character who could have easily been weaponized into a place of villainy, a cheap attempt at extenuating a circumstance that needs no further aggravators. The two women aren’t made to be friends, either, and the content placidity of cordiality that develops between them is a welcome choice by the director, who establishes mutual respect between the two women without resorting to Zlotowski is protective of the nuanced nature of the issue at the heart of “Other People’s Children.” There is no need to vilify Ali to validate Rachel’s feelings of alienation. The same kindness is extended to Alice (Chiara Mastroianni), Leila’s mother, a character who could have easily been weaponized into a place of villainy, a cheap attempt at extenuating a circumstance that needs no further aggravators. The two women aren’t made to be friends, either, and the content placidity of cordiality that develops between them is a welcome choice by the director, who establishes mutual respect between the two women without resorting to the clunkiness that can come from being overtly politically correct.
Efira delivers a muted yet potent performance, fluctuating between restrained sorrow and gentle affection. As Rachel, her eyes follow Leila through rooms she isn’t invited to, subtle glances translating the enormity of this twisted form of loneliness. Motherhood, a yearning she can’t fulfill, is realized through the instinctive mothering of others, be it a student or her younger sister, small acts of care found in a tap of the shoulder or the nearing of a hand. Even amidst unthinkable pain, Rachel is portrayed by Efira with almost masochistic empathy, conveying the emotional maturity that comes with the understanding that some questions are doomed to remain rhetoric.
Written by Zlotowski out of a personal desire to communicate the little-discussed complexities of her life as a 40-something stepmother who never had children of her own, “Other People’s Children” is a moving rumination on the pains caused by the unbudging pillars of traditional parenting. It is a rare offering in its enlightened kindness, and a heartbreaking one, too. [B+]
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