It’s the wonder of the week, funny, original and unmissable. We tell you everything about Her Father’s Daughter, an ode to fatherhood full of fantasy and accuracy, to discover in your cinemas.
This week in your cinemas, don’t miss Her Father’s Daughter, a real gem featuring a paternal and filial relationship like no other, free, whimsical, poetic.
The story of Étienne who was barely twenty years old when he fell in love with Valérie, and barely more when their daughter Rosa was born. The day Valérie abandons them, he chooses not to make a drama out of it. Étienne and Rosa build a happy life. Sixteen years later, when the young girl has to leave to study and everyone has to separate to live their lives, the past resurfaces.
Two rising stars of French cinema…
A hymn to the family, coming at the right time during this end-of-year holiday season, Her Father’s Daughter is led by actor Nahuel Perez Biscayart, moving as can be desired in the skin of this abandoned but combative father. Revelation of 120 Beats per Minute and Au Revoir là-haut, the actor offers an offbeat performance, like a frail and burlesque Buster Keaton, wide eyes and poorly determined feelings.
At his side, more endearing than ever, Céleste Brunnquell (revealed in Les Eblouis and better known from the series In Therapy) is more calm but just as funny and above all luminous. It was in Cannes, where the film was screened at the end of Critics’ Week, that we met the actress, shy but happy to be there and to carry this gem of a project, a well-thought-out choice in the image of his young career.
A different, burlesque universe, with a real author’s eye
“I try to be very careful with my choice of films, because for me, the most important point is sincerity in what I can do. It’s the importance of being clear with certain things and then being able to completely surrender to something that you really believe in. It’s quite complicated to explain because it’s very instinctive.” Céleste Brunnquell told us, before specifying:
“As a spectator, I am quite demanding too. I really like cinema and I really believe in the possibility of creating new forms. So I take the time to make choices and the fact of having played in In therapywith this character that people identified with, allowed me to take this time too…”
Fresh and innovative, Her Father’s Daughter also appealed to the intelligent actress, who had already greatly enjoyed her director’s first feature film:
“I had seen the first film ofErwan Le Duc and I loved it. And already, when reading the script, I saw the sensitivity and intimacy of the subject. What it wanted to say. We then met and we have the same way of seeing cinema. It has a real identity, a different universe, burlesque with a real author’s eye.” An author who knows how to move as much as to make people laugh in this film, nourished by gags and comic discoveries.
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…serving a father-daughter relationship like no other
“Rosa, my heroine, is not the funniest and most fanciful character in the film and I had to place myself a little away from that too, while having a fairly strong gap, but which was placed elsewhere. I was a not very observant of all these worlds that burst together. Seeing all my partners at work, who were so funny and sincere and touching, I learned a lot.” Céleste Brunnquell further clarified.
It is true that the actors – and characters – who gravitate alongside him are all inspiring and formidable. Special mention to the priceless roles of the epic poet boyfriend (Mohammed Louridi), to the disillusioned real estate agent friend, to the mayor of the city in crisis (brilliant Noémie Lvovsky) and the healthy and serene lover (moving Maud Wyler) .
A true relationship of equality and a physical resemblance between our two people, both juveniles
“Erwan, despite the time constraints, left us a lot of room, for our ideas, also for accidents on a set. What an object can allow to transform the scene. And what was funny, it “On the set, it was as if we had forgotten the text written and learned by heart and we were starting everything from the beginning with the baggage of rehearsals. We could abandon ourselves to the scene thanks to the exhaustion of everything we had been able to test before”, describes Céleste Brunnquell.
Perfect teamwork magnified by the in-tune duo she forms with Nahuel Perez Biscayart:
“There is a physical resonance between us”, she comments, “something instinctive, obvious, without artifice”. All in the service of a father-daughter relationship marked, among other things, by a relationship of total trust: “I find this work of transmission, this love story magnificent, with a real relationship of equality and a physical resemblance between our two people, both juveniles. We don’t really know where they are in their parenthood and how they both build their lives around their relationship.” Which is what makes their story so interesting.
Funny and moving, Her Father’s Daughter after having conquered Cannes, will delight your end of year. Do not under any circumstances miss this charming opus, featuring two close and endearing heroes, one linked by the loss of a loved one and the other that of a mother, and for whom, despite everything, “There is no love lost”, nor room for drama or by skillfully balancing it with the poetic and the comic, and by arming it with funny and brilliant reflections on death, love and sex. Just that.
To be discovered in cinemas since December 20, 2023.