Hunting & Gathering

The story of three people sharing a flat in Paris. Camille cleans offices at night, eats very little and talks to nobody. She is in fact a painter, but she gave it up. She lives in a cold attic room. Philibert lives in the same building, in a large and untidy apartment. He stammers, is excessively polite and is fascinated by history. When Camille falls ill he takes her in. The third person is Franck. He is a cook in a restaurant, permanently irritable, coarse in speech, and his only real tie is his grandmother Paulette. She is in a care home and does not want to live there. The film is about these four holding on to each other. Nobody rescues anybody; simply living in the same flat changes something over time. The source is Anna Gavalda's bestselling novel. Audrey Tautou plays Camille, Guillaume Canet plays Franck and Laurent Stocker plays Philibert. Claude Berri directed; it was among his last films. A warm choice for anyone who likes French emotional drama and character-driven storytelling. For a viewer expecting something harder, the film softens the bitter side of the novel and keeps its register optimistic.