Comedy of Innocence

Loosely adapted from Massimo Bontempelli’s late-1920s novella The Boy with Two Mothers, this haunting film again finds Ruiz exploring the concept of family with both humor and a swelling sense of unease. On his ninth birthday, Camille (Nils Hugon) announces to his mom (Isabelle Huppert) that his real name is Paul and that she’s not his real mother, and he soon brings her to meet a mentally unstable violin teacher (Jeanne Balibar) whose own son drowned two years ago and would be Camille’s age… At Camille’s behest, she moves in with the family, further deranging the chilly bourgeois household and catalyzing this consummately Ruizian tale of madness and identity confusion. An NYFF38 selection.  Print courtesy of the Institut Français.