Les Enfants Vont Bien
A moving French family drama about a woman who has consciously chosen not to have children and who is suddenly left to look after her sister’s two young children.
Jeanne has consciously chosen a life without children. Her carefully constructed existence is completely disrupted when her sister Suzanne, whom she hasn’t seen for years, suddenly turns up on her doorstep with her children. At first, it seems as though Suzanne is trying to mend her relationship with her sister, but the next morning Suzanne has disappeared. Without explanation – and without the children. The search for Suzanne yields nothing, and so Jeanne is left to look after her nephew and niece. What begins as an emergency situation forces Jeanne to re-examine her ideas about family, responsibility and the future she had mapped out for herself.
This intimate drama is a portrait of a woman forced to become a mother to children she barely knows. We witness the slow process of bonding, the fears and hesitations of the emerging family, and the fragility of bonds forged out of necessity. The film premiered at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where it won the Best Director Award.