Father of My Children

Grégoire is an independent producer: the phone never stops, three films are running at once, everybody wants something from him, and the company is deep in debt. The time he spends with his wife and three daughters is squeezed between those calls. The first half of the film is that tempo. Then he kills himself, and the film carries on without him. Mia Hansen-Løve splits the structure exactly down the middle. In the second half his wife and daughters learn what state the company is in, what he had been carrying and what he never said. The death is not a climax but an interruption. It was inspired by a real person: the French producer Humbert Balsan, who financed Hansen-Løve's first feature and took his own life in 2005. She made the film as something she owed him. It won the jury special prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2009. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet French family drama. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for an emotional peak.