Remi, Nobody's Boy

Rémi, ten years old, is taken from the home he grew up in and sold to Vitalis, a travelling musician. On the road he learns to make a living by singing and performing with a dog and a monkey. Underneath it all runs the question of who his family really is. The film is not interested in adventure. It is interested in what the master teaches the apprentice: Vitalis is not really teaching the boy to sing but to be paid and to depend on nobody. Their relationship is the centre. The form rests on wide landscapes and period design, in the register of a family film. The contrast between snowy passes and the streets of Paris is pronounced. The source is Hector Malot's 1878 novel Sans famille, a school-age classic read by generations in France and adapted many times; this is a new screen version. Antoine Blossier directed. Daniel Auteuil plays Vitalis and Maleaume Paquin plays Rémi, with Virginie Ledoyen in the cast. Who it is for: viewers who like adaptations of classic children's literature and period films to watch with the family. Who it is not for: anyone expecting surprises. Readers of the novel will know where it is going, and the film lays its emotional accents on thickly.