Just how far a mother go for her child is the question at the heart of Her Way, a challenging vehicle for the rising star of Laure Calamy. The debut feature of writer and director Cécile Ducrocq sees the Cesar-winning actor (My Donkey, My Lover & I) plays an independent sex worker who relinquishes some of that self-sufficiency to raise the tuitions fees for a place at a prestigious school for her son. Free of judgement about its subject, but shying away from a lot of its harsher aspects, Her Way succeeds through the barrelling charisma and grounded appeal of its star.
Marie (Calamy) has been a sex worker for a long time. She’s not only proud of it, but she’s also an activist and spokeswoman for a pressure group that lobbies for recognition for sex workers. She supports both herself and her shiftless 17-year-old son Adrian (Nissim Renard) with her work. Adrian is expelled from his cookery course and is unwilling to get out of bed for anything less than his passion for food. The only option is the École Perandier, a high-end private school with tuition fees to match. Faced with an initial bill of €5000 due in two months, Marie has to concede that her income isn’t going to cut it. She gets a night job at a nightclub/ brothel run by an old acquaintance (Sam Louwyck) in the hope that she can supplement her own income to raise the money before Adrian’s place goes to someone else. She also has to motivate her hostile and ungrateful son to help her help him.
Laure Calamy is undoubtedly the reason that Her Way works as well as it does. The beats of the story are similar to any number of kitchen sink dramas in which a single parent has to beat the odds to secure a better future for their child. What sets it apart is the economic context of the sex worker and its place in French society; and how Calamy’s forceful, indefatigable protagonist negotiates this. Through Marie, our notions are questioned due to her insistence that it is not only something she shouldn’t be ashamed of, but a completely valid profession. It’s clear that Marie chose this, it hasn’t been thrust upon her. When being turned down for a loan by the bank she gives her career as prostitute without batting an eyelid, providing proof of her tax return as she does so. And she’s turned down due to her debt ratio being too high, not because of any prejudice towards sex workers.
Calamy is such a winning performer and clearly an actor entirely comfortable in their own skin, which is necessary for this frank role. It’s not hugely graphic, but there’s a delicate balance to be struck. Marie’s position can’t be interpreted as one of exploitation or the assertion of her independence and dignity is undermined. But there’s also the risk that it comes across as fantasy frippery like Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Thankfully Calamy’s performance and Ducrocq’s sensitive camerawork skips over that tightrope. Marie is confident and sexy enough that it’s easy to believe there is no shortage of johns willing to pay for her services, but there’s a hint of playful absurdity that stops those scenes from being overt titillation.
Less convincing is the sheer effort Marie puts in for the appalling Adrian, who languishes like a salted slug for most of the duration apart from the odd flare of ludicrously childish petulance. The aim is surely to show that a mother’s love has no boundaries, but there is too little done to make us feel anything other than pity for Marie that she would push herself to the extremes she does for someone so undeserving. When Adrian does come round, it’s so abruptly so there’s not enough of a satisfying arc for the character or real sense of vindication for Marie. The audience has to have faith in the cause that’s being fought for to really root for its success, and sadly that isn’t the case here. It leaves Marie’s journey as something of a Mother Courage-like picaresque; a hair’s breadth away from tumbling into tragedy.
Despite this, the brilliant Calamy is compulsively watchable and she’s directed deftly by the talented Ducrocq, who gives us a convincing milieu of drizzly streets, cramped apartments, and stygian neon brothels in which Marie goes about her somewhat merry business. As a whole My Way comes across like something of a modern update of Nights of Cabiria, Ducrocq and Calamy have conjured a superb heroine that’s as easy to fall in love with as Giulietta Masina‘s iconic character. However, the world in which she’s placed doesn’t quite do her justice. While sex work is not shown in a way that could be considered at all glamorous, there’s still a timidity in showing the brutal aspects of the work that leaves a slightly glossy finish. At its heart, My Way still adheres to a standard feel-good formula. It adds some astringent flavours to it for sure, but it’s still all-too-easily consumed.
Screening as part of Glasgow Film Festival 2022