Chez nous (2017)

Directed by: Lucas Belvaux | 117 minutes | drama | Actors: Émilie Dequenne, André Dusollier, Guillaume Gouix, Catherine Jacob, Anne Marivin, Patrick Descamps, Charlotte Talpaert, Mateo Debaets, Coline Marcourt, Corentin Lobet, Thibault Roux, Michel Ferracci, Stéphane Caillard, Cyril Descours, Julien Roy, Bernard Mazzinghi

In ‘Chez nous’ we follow the path of the sympathetic home care nurse Pauline (Émilie Duquenne) to the mayoralty of her fictitious hometown Hémars in French Flanders. From a Front National-like party that is. Is ‘Chez nous’ perhaps a social-realistic film? No and yes, in that order. And that is also the problem. The decent Dequenne (‘Rosetta’) initially seems to have stepped out of a Mike Leigh full of good-natured feel-good characters. There is an ex-husband who refuses to look after the children when Pauline finds a dead patient in bed. She waits cheerfully for the doctor (André Dussollier) to arrive, who then invites her to dinner where he offers her the mayoralty of her own village, for his far-right ‘Bloc’. Soon brunette Pauline is as blond as the Le Pen-esque party leader Agnès Dorgelle (Catherine Jacob). This is unimaginable, but Pauline goes along with it big-eyed, and she also has a friend (Guillaume Gouix) who is gentle and also a neo-Nazi.

Not so easy to unite feelgood and the extreme right, especially not in characters. There are more contradictions. ‘Chez nous’ seems aimed at ‘ordinary people’ – as a warning, but will mainly attract an arthouse audience. As a result, the film looks made, and develops little; every time Pauline curiously walks through them. Questions of conscience are raised, but then dodged. For example, when Pauline witnesses a beating between neo-Nazis and Muslim youths. Pauline wants to be herself, but it seems she has made a choice that violates her personality. Director Lucas Delvaux (’38 témoins’) attaches no dramatic consequences to it. It happens and ripples on. Towards the end, the film takes on a more documentary character. ‘This is the state of France’, Delvaux seems to want to say. As mentioned, the far right doesn’t mix well with sluggish feel-good, although the acting of the main characters can be considered not without merit.