Mum Is Wrong

Anouk is fourteen and goes to the insurance company where her mother works for the school's week of work experience. The point is to see a workplace up close. What Anouk sees in a week is her mother as she is not at home: how she behaves towards her manager, what she says to whom, which things she quietly signs off on. Slowly the girl realises her mother is not the person she has been told about. Marc Fitoussi's film starts as a story about adolescence, but what it is really about is the small compromises of a workplace: nobody does anything greatly wrong, everyone bends a little, and the sum of it becomes an order. That is why Anouk's reaction looks out of proportion, and the film does not try to prove her right. Émilie Dequenne plays the mother and Jeanne Jestin the daughter. The narrative marks the moment childhood ends not with an event but with a look.