Once Upon My Mother

In this inspiring, emotionally charged, and often funny real-life drama set in the 1960s, the matriarch of a bustling Jewish immigrant family from Morocco living in the Parisian suburbs will do anything to give her youngest son the best possible life despite his physical setbacks. Born with a clubfoot, little Roland is unable to walk, yet his mother, Esther (Algerian French actress Leïla Bekhti, in a flamboyant, tour de force performance), is undeterred, her determination to help him live “normally” turning into an obsession. The film follows Roland into adulthood, as his maternal relationship grows increasingly complicated, even overwhelming. A fiery and wondrous adaptation of an autobiographical novel by French writer and radio personality Roland Perez, featuring music by Sylvie Vartan, who plays herself in the film, the upbeat and miraculous Once Upon My Mother beautifully demonstrates the complex phenomenon of a mother’s single-minded, against-all-odds devotion.