«Pupille»: adoption or the promise of dawn3 reading minutes

Cinema Wednesdays - Thierry Fivaz

A young woman (Leïla Muse) turns up alone at the reception desk of a hospital in a French town. She is pregnant. By how many weeks exactly? She doesn't know. She doesn't want any pregnancy monitoring. What she does know is that her delivery is imminent and that the child she's about to give birth to is one she doesn't want. She has given him a name: Théo. As it stands, the infant cannot be adopted. For two months, his mother can reverse her decision. A temporary family must therefore be found for him before the Adoption Service can finally find him real parents.

With Pupil, Jeanne Herry (She loves it) shows us with realism, delicacy and sensitivity how the various state services (the Adoption Service, the Child Welfare Service, etc.) coordinate to support the orphans for whom he becomes responsible. These are children whose lives got off to a rocky start, but who also have a right to happiness.

Although this is a fiction rather than a documentary, the young director achieves the triple feat of making a film that is both documented and moving, while never lapsing into the pathos or caricature. An intelligent and delicate film on the subject of children born under the age of five. x to whom parents must be found, remains a stranger to the director's intimate life. She is the mother of two «biological» children, and has no direct experience of adoption. Herry reveals and dissects this often little-known reality through the prism of fiction, a fiction that she anchors in reality. (editor's note: the story is set in Brittany and the city of Brest).

If the spirit of Pupil is rather optimistic, the director doesn't hesitate to show the reality of adoption procedures: the (unbearable) wait for couples who wish to have a child, the requirements they have to meet, the refusals they can face when the Adoption Service deems them «not yet ready». This harsh reality is reflected in a scene in which Lydie (Olivia Côte), a social worker, has to tell a couple who have been waiting for years that they have been refused adoption accreditation. This is a blow to the couple's dream of having a child. However, as the social worker explains, this non-approval does not mean that they are considered unfit to be parents, but that they are considered unfit to be parents of a child who will carry with him or her a singular history for the rest of his or her life. In short, it's not a question of finding a child for parents in need, but of finding parents for a child with special needs.

In addition to tackling a subject rarely dealt with in cinema, Pupil also surprises with its casting. In the role of Jean, the family assistant to whom Théo is entrusted for the first two months of his life, Gilles Lellouche surprises. The man who played the heartthrob with Dujardin in Infidels now sees herself playing nanny to an infant. A role that suits him like a glove. Lellouche makes Jean a modest, sensitive, attentive character, a modern man (Jean is a stay-at-home dad), plagued by doubts and who just wants to «do well». A masculine presence that stands out in a world populated mainly by women, and which, contrary to clichés, shows that a man can also take on tasks that are not his own. yesterday's world reserved for women.

The modernity of the story is also embodied by Alice (a wonderfully touching Elodie Bouchez), who becomes little Théo's mother even though she's not married. The fact that adoption is now open to single people still poses difficulties for those wishing to adopt. Many countries still refuse to entrust their wards to unmarried people.

Last but not least, how can we not mention the importance of the gaze (the second pupil) and speech in this film? A feature film that I recommend you go and watch.

Write to the author: thierry.fivaz@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © Frenetic Films