Starring Ariane Ascaride. Written by Robert Guédiguian, Jean-Louis Milesi. Directed by Robert Guédigian. 14A. 105 min. Opens Feb. 10.
Despite its title, veteran French director Robert Guédiguian’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro isn’t another screen adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway story. Rather, it’s a feel-good humanist drama about a working-class Marseille couple who become victims of a brutal home invasion that ends up bringing out the best in them.
Michel (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) and Marie-Claire (Ariane Ascaride) are baby boomers who’ve lived up to their generation’s high ideals. He’s a union rep and self-sacrificing socialist who takes a voluntary layoff to benefit his fellow shipyard workers. She’s a caregiver for the elderly with a tender heart. When their money is stolen, along with wedding-anniversary tickets to Tanzania, their initial anger gives way to pity when they learn the identity of one of the masked thieves—a young work colleague of Michel’s (played by Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) who is struggling to raise two little brothers on his own. Ironically enough, they soon become caught up in trying to help the man who robbed them.
The leftist Guédiguian’s view of humanity here is as sentimental as that of Romantic writer Victor Hugo, whose poem “How Good Are the Poor” inspired the film’s plot. But Guédiguian’s characters aren’t simplistic and he treats all of them with admirable understanding. Even a neglectful, selfish mother (Karole Rocher) is allowed to speak her piece. His affections, though, lie with Michel and Marie-Claire. Played with superb understatement by Darroussin and Ascaride, they provide a touching example of a couple bound not just by love, but by their compassion for others.
