Friday, February 7, 2025

“MY EVERYTHING”

THE STORY – Mona lives with her adult son, Joël, in a small apartment in the Paris suburbs. Now in his early thirties, Joël is “slow” as they say. He works in a specialised facility. He is passionately in love with his coworker Océane, who is also disabled. Mona, however, knows nothing of their relationship. When Océane becomes pregnant, a choice must be made, and the symbiotic bond between mother and son falters.

THE CAST – Laure Calamy, Charles Peccia Galletto & Julie Froger

THE TEAM – Anne-Sophie Bailly (Director/Writer)

THE RUNNING TIME – 95 Minutes


Debut filmmakers often fall into a trap; their scripts over-explain, and their characters broadcast their emotions through expository dialogue. In her remarkably assured feature debut “My Everything” (Mon Inséparable), which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in the Orizzonti section, director Anne-Sophie Bailly deftly navigates the tribulations surrounding the motherhood of a man with learning difficulties in a film that is not so much a portrait of a mother-son relationship but a tender snapshot of it breaking.

“My Everything” opens in water: air bubbles rise from Mona’s mouth (a fierce, never-better Laure Calamy) as she breaks the surface of a pool. The tranquility on her face is swiftly exchanged by apology. Her son Joël (Charles Alexis Galletto), a 30-something man with learning difficulties, swims carelessly around the pool, knocked into a fellow swimmer in his training for an (imaginary) excursion to Antarctica. Joël, whose in-film disability is delicately and deliberately kept nondescript, struggles with social cues and has a job that requires support. This doesn’t stop him from having his own sense of autonomy, which he very much invokes within his blossoming romance with Océane (Julie Froger). When Océane falls pregnant – who, like Jöel, is a ward under parental care – the once symbiotic relationship between Mona and Jöel begins fracturing and is not helped by Océane’s parents, whose worries over the pregnancy are rooted in whether she can be a parent when she needs to care herself. Their concerns come from love but are the exact ideals Bailly is challenging – those who may require extra support are not entirely helpless or should have human rights stripped from them because of others’ decisions. 

Bailly’s screenplay is quite beautiful: meager in exposition, but the dialogue is brimming with this constant sense of empathy. Casting Froger and Galletto, who are themselves disabled, provides a continuous sense that Bailly is making her art progressive, while the disability of the two actors is never distracting. Their chemistry is one of the highlights of the film. Jöel is shown incapable of understanding certain social concepts, but his love for her is a concept he can grasp; the tiny kisses he gives her shoulder are comforting for both him and a scared Océane.

These instances of delicate affection are what is ravishing about Bailly’s directorial choices within “My Everything,” as she makes sure to capture these minute moments of touch. Even the sex scene between Mona and her bearded one-night stand turned swooning, charming love interest Frank (Geert Van Rampelberg) is shot as though Bailly adores her actors. She captures their skin being pressed in by hungry hands, the camera cherishing each dimple, a celebration of a mature human body that contemporary cinema usually seems unworthy to be looked at and admired.

This is where Mona becomes such a fascinating character. Her outbursts of emotion are brittle implosions of stress, as the narrative stays away from overly melodramatic and overbearing posturing. Calamy – who was phenomenal in Eric Gravel’s “Full Time” – portrays Mona as someone morally complicated; her internal conflict in the film stems from love and wanting the safety of the boy who came out of her unable to lift his head. But Bailly presents her as a whole person, not just as a mother who cares for a son with difficulties. Mona’s perspective is written as someone not to be criticized for her actions but understood and empathized with. Just as Jöel is a freed canary, ready to face the world, Mona is a woman relieved to be given room to become a person again.“We bring each other down,” Jöel states, once again proving his maturity.

Maturity is the name of the game with “My Everything,” a touching ode to the pain and sacrifices made in motherhood. Bailly’s central characters are wonderfully realized and complex. Calamy and Galletto have undeniable chemistry, their dynamic as mother and son at times both humorous and acidic, as you understand why the film chooses to break that bond, their relationship a smashed vase. But a vase breaking can never be put back together in the same way, like how a statement made in anger can never be unformed by lips. The pieces are glued back haphazardly, their relationship never quite the same but remaining beautiful in its newly evolved, reformed way. This is, ultimately, Bailly’s point: where do we give ourselves a break when love is the thing that motivates us? “My Everything” is a film with its heart in the right place that places our emotions as the genesis for conflict rather than the environment. It might often be a little too slight, but a film with empathy coursing through its veins is impossible not to fall irrevocably in love with.

THE RECAP

THE GOOD - Calamy is as extraordinary as ever. Amuses us often and engages our moral compass in ways that we may not have expected it to do.

THE BAD - The drama doesn’t hit as big as it wants to as it focuses on the emotions rather than conflict.

THE OSCAR PROSPECTS - None

THE FINAL SCORE - 8/10

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<b>THE GOOD - </b>Calamy is as extraordinary as ever. Amuses us often and engages our moral compass in ways that we may not have expected it to do.<br><br> <b>THE BAD - </b>The drama doesn’t hit as big as it wants to as it focuses on the emotions rather than conflict.<br><br> <b>THE OSCAR PROSPECTS - </b>None<br><br> <b>THE FINAL SCORE - </b>8/10<br><br>"MY EVERYTHING”