Mother and Son

Leonor Serraille's 2022 French film follows Rose and her two sons, who move from Ivory Coast to the Paris suburbs at the end of the eighties. It spans twenty years in three sections, each centred on one person's view. The idea is that one family has three different stories. For Rose the arrival is a beginning; for the elder son it means constantly having to explain himself; for the younger it means belonging nowhere. The film does not reconcile them. Serraille builds no narrative of rise or fall; the gaps between the sections are skipped and the result is not a chronology but three separate registers. Annabelle Lengronne leads. Who it's for: those who like contemporary French cinema and family narratives about migration. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a linear story; the film makes large jumps in time.