C'est la vie (1990) from Tuna

C'est la vie (1990) is an autobiographical film by Diane Kurys (Entre Nous) which takes place during the summer of her 13th year.

It is a slice of life film, and shows how she, and those around her, cope with the divorce of her parents. The family is to spend the summer at the beach, with her mother's half sister and her family. This has been an annual event. She has been picking up overtones that her parents marriage is not a happy one, and, at the train station, her mother hustles her and her sister on the train with their nanny, and announces that she won't be there for a few weeks. It shapes up to be the best summer of her life. She delights in tormenting her nanny, romancing her older cousin, and enjoying her joker of an uncle. Then her mother arrives -- with a lover, and the children learn that they will be moving to Paris with their mother. Then, their father arrives. He doesn't want the divorce, and tries to play the kids against their mother to stop it.

One reviewer called it half coming of age, half tragedy of divorce, and said that the two stories fought each other. Not every story with a girl on the cusp of womanhood is a coming of age story, and Frédérique (Julie Bataille) is the same child at the end of the film that she was at the beginning. She is ready to start High School, and her family will never be together again, but there is no loss of innocence here, or coming of age. All of the children from both families, which range in age from 5 to 15, play together, and gladly. One of the things that makes this film for me is the absolute believability of the characters. Frédérique, writing in her diary, says of her older cousin, "He says he slept with a girl. I didn't believe him, but he gave me details, and now I am not so sure." When they sneak into a sand castle contest for members of a beach club, and one of her cousins is declared the winner, then disqualified because he is not a member, all the kids sneak back late at night and burn the club playground down.

As for the adults, they are an equally entertaining mix. Valéria Bruni-Tedeschi, as the governess, is the perfect butt of the kids jokes, and provides the only exposure. She is lying on her stomach with her top undone to avoid tan lines, when the uncle hollers, "scorpion." She jumps up, exposing her breasts. The uncle is a joker, but has a temper. The aunt is pregnant yet again. The mother has thrown caution to the wind and is having an affair with a starving artist. The artist is going to New York, and expects her to drop everything and go with him. The father is self-absorbed, and sees nothing wrong with using his kids to apply pressure on the mother.

Roger Ebert, in a thoughtful review, awarded 2 1/2 stars. His main complaint was that he wanted more resolution, commenting that he was not convinced even the film maker knew what effect the divorce had on the kids. I would guess that Kurys is still sorting out her feelings about her parents' breakup. The trailer was a montage of scenes from the film with an English voice-over by Kurys, who said that it was the best summer of her life, that ended with the most shattering experience of her life. She translated C'est la vie, which we usually think of as Such is Life as That's Life. I didn't detect the usual cynical view that life sucks, so what, in her tone, but rather that life is what it is.

(Note: C'est la vie is the title used for distribution in English-speaking countries. The original French title was La Baule-les-Pins )