The Hedgehog

Director: Mona Achache
Cast: Josiane Balasko, Garance Le Gullermic, Anne Brochet and Togo Igawa
Releasing in cinemas: 8 July 2010
Rated: M

Sometimes a modest, unheralded foreign movie doing the art-house circuit can prove surprisingly rewarding. Nothing might prepare you for quiet emotional impact of this beautifully elegiac French film about improbable relationships. The moving restrained performances of Josiane Balasko as the churlish frumpy concierge Renee and Garance Le Gullermic as the precocious young Paloma won’t be easily forgotten. The Hedgehog is a film with heart and characters you’ll care about.

In an intriguing opening, we’re introduced to Paloma Josse, a highly intelligent eleven year-old already so bored she has a death wish to kill herself on her 12th birthday. Paloma surreptitiously makes a video diary of her aimless life with her rich but detached parents and neighbours in their upmarket apartments. Paloma sees herself and family as trapped goldfish, doomed to neurotically swim in a bowl of bourgeois existence.

Her mother Solange (Anne Brochet) has been under therapy for ten years, and is now off with the fairies and talks to the plants. Paloma’s father Paul (Wladimir Yordanoff) is vaguely aloof and concerned about his collapsing political career. Self-absorbed elder sister Colombe (Sarah Le Picard) snobbishly enjoys the wealthy status of the family.

Then there’s Renee Michel, the dour concierge living in relatively humble conditions below stairs in the luxury apartments. She attends to her duties with a cold disdain, having done this work for many years. We learn that she has a fine library and reads classics in her spare time. She’s no fool, and there’s much love of literature and art beneath a prickly exterior - so we meet the metaphor of the title.

On the scene arrives a wealthy elegant Japanese gentleman, Kukaro Ozu (Togo Igawa), who leases one of the apartments and cultivates the reluctant Renee as a friend. He senses there’s much more to the lady than she lets on. Kukaro invites Renee to have dinner in his apartment in a superbly worked scene, with some comic flourishes and even a neat reference to the famous Japanese director Ozu.

Paloma equally finds solace visiting the concierge; realising that behind Renee’s sour attitude there’s a kind, intelligent person. The little girl filled with gloomy certainties about life becomes slowly transformed by her association with Renee and Kakuro finding life is more surprising than she imagined. Renee also undergoes a joyful liberation associating with Paloma, and a growing attachment to Kakuro.

Taking the Tolstoy quote “All happy families are the same - each unhappy family is unique” as a starting point, the director studies the unlikely relationship of lonely people; the highly intelligent but suicidal Paloma, and the concierge who rediscovers her self-respect and something approaching love. There’s an unexpected clout in the final moments which might send you reeling.

The Hedgehog is a film of touching moments and wry humour: a toilet alarmingly plays Mozart; the goldfish are affected by some magic realism. The finely tempered scene in the hairdressers as Josiane Balasko sees herself transformed is a masterpiece of understatement. Garance Le Gullermic provides an equally restrained performance, one exceptional for a such a young attractive actress. She’s a great talent to watch.

John Bale