SEQUINS
Directed by: Eléonore Faucher.
Produced by: Alain Benguigui.
Written by: Eléonore Faucher & Gaëlle Macé.
Director of Photography: Pierre Cottereau.
Edited by: Joëlle van Effenterre.
Music by: Michael Galasso.
Released by: New Yorker.
Language: French with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: France. 88 min. Not Rated.
With: Lola Naymark & Ariane Ascaride.

Teenager Claire has moved out of her parent’s farm and into a studio, working as a cashier in a supermarket to support herself while she designs beautiful embroidery. Then her life flips over - she finds out she is pregnant. Being with the father is not an option. Telling her parents is out of the question.

Throughout the film, she predictably figures out what to do. However, her journey is engaging and fresh for the viewer. Her feelings of confusion and anxiety are real and portrayed with nuance and poise by actress Lola Neymark. And Claire’s interaction with Madame Melikian (Ariane Ascaride), a grieving mother whose son was killed in a motorcycle accident and who also happens to be a superb embroiderer, is clear-eyed and thankfully devoid of any kind of clichéd soap opera development. It is understated, but forceful, like the film itself.

The film’s pace is also an understatement, comfortably slow and intimate. Often there is silence or only reaction shots, which communicate the characters’ feelings more effectively than actual words. Its many close-ups give Sequins some of its magically intimate atmosphere, focusing not only on the characters’ faces, but also on the shiny embroidery Claire and Madame Melikian make, and the slow, meticulous process of producing such a final product. Their inner worlds are revealed, and Claire’s fascination with her craft is better understood. All in all, director Eléonore Faucher delivers a deceptively downplayed story that is, in reality, a compelling one, predictable in its ending but powerful nevertheless. Roxana M. Ramirez
May 26, 2005