Showing @ Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow, Sat 01 & Sun 02 Mar
Benoît Cohen / France / 2013 / 87 mins
According to the Telegraph, one in five men wouldn’t trust a male nanny, but Benoît Cohen’s enjoyably warm-hearted production shows the benefits a male influence can have. Failing to get into drama school, free spirited twenty-year-old Théo (Jules Sagot) takes a job looking after academically gifted but socially stunted ten-year-old Léo (Aurelio Cohen). While Léo’s dad (Grégoire Monsaingeon) exudes a gruff and overprotective persona, his wife (Eleonore Pourriat) and son soon warm to Théo’s bohemian personality.
In demonstrating early on Théo’s immaturity, Benoît is able to flip the status of responsibility between Théo and Léo; Théo is expert in leisure activities but Léo often cooks for his nanny. The isolated and secretive feel to Léo’s home, aided by the garden wall, gives those early scenes the impression of happening in parallel to reality; it’s a space where Théo and Léo can rise above exterior worries. The idyllic nature of the paradise-like garden in particular, filling the screen with sumptuous swathes of emerald vegetation, mirrors the blossoming relationship between the two boys. What Théo lacks in sense, he makes up for with joyful gregariousness, his carefree and whimsical attitude even drawing the reclusive mother out from the refuge of her bedroom. By juxtaposing the cantankerous father against the unconventional nanny, Benoît demonstrates the merits of a balance in lifestyle approaches.