February 24, 1998

Ma Vie En Rose (My Life In Pink)

The setup for this nightmarish mixture of Tim Burton and John Cassevettes is a simple one: seven-year old Ludovic Fabre (Georges Du Fresne) believes he is a girl in a boy's body (a 'girlboy' as he puts it) and tries to adjust to fit the image. He dresses up in pink. He brings in Pam and Ben dolls (the movie's equivalent of Barbie and Ken) for show-and-tell and tells his class that he wants to be Pam when he grows up. He even flirts with and convinces a neighbor's son, Jerome (Julien Riviere), to marry him - something which does not sit well with the parentsof his close-knit neighborhood.

The adults in the community are scathingly homophobic - perhaps even too much so (the movie does take place in modern day France, after all, so you'd figure a little more open-mindedness, to say the least) - and the idea of a boy who wants to be a girl does not sit well with them. They don't want their children to grow up 'bent,' as they put it. So, they turn on Ludovic.

Of course, Ludovic doesn't understand the problems he causes (and in a way, neither do I; I would think that the since the child is only seven, it would make the parents a little more forgiving towards his behavior). He is still trying to find himself and doesn't understand why everyone around him suddenly has such a short fuse with him. So, when things become too heated, he escapes into elaborate daydreams - living in a sort of Barbie dream house, where everything is pink and overtly feminine, and where Pam (the doll come to life) is his dearest, most understanding friend. (Both this dream world and the neighborhood itself reminded me of a light-hearted version of the community in Edward Scissorhands.)

When it becomes clear that tormenting Ludovic does little more than scare him (rather than scare him straight), the community turns on the Fabre family and eventually drives them from the neighborhood. Ludovic's father, Pierre (Julien Riviere), loses his job. His mother, Hanna (Michele Laroque), realizing that her family has lost everything they have worked for, blames Ludovic viciously. And little Ludovic cannot help but act accordingly. He runs and hides. He goes to live with his grandmother. He bottles up. It's all quite horrible.

First time director Alan Berliner tries to get across that you should love your kid no matter what, no matter the circumstances. Unfortunately, though, this idea comes across too simply for me - it has the strength of an above-average after-school special - mainly because the characters are too simply drawn. Despite fine performances from everyone, especially by Michele Laroque as Hanna and Georges Du Fresne as the poor, confused Ludovic, the characters are not complex enough to become anything more than caricatures. Yes, the adults in the film are hypocrites. They seem to care about Ludovic's confusion at first, but in the end they care more about their public image and financial security than anything else. But although their hypocrisy is honestly depicted, the film doesn't give enough details about the adult characters to fully justify their behaviors. As a result, I was not convinced enough by the parents' actions and attitudes to find them genuine, or even believable at times. They are simply the villains and nothing more. And at the end of the movie, when Ludovic and his parents reconcile, this simplicity gives everything a false sense of closure. There is no absolute conviction that Ludovic will be free from future torment.

Maybe the director intended this. I'm not sure. The presentation hints that this could be either a happy ending or an incomplete one. Either way, it's not satisfying, and it only made me wish the film went a little further toward its goal.

Eyal Goldshmid I am a fiction writer supporting myself as a government clerk for the US army. Until I can fully live off writing, I plan to milk all the luxury I can from the American taxpayer. Other Articles I've Written