Je me suis fait tout petit

There’s nothing left to keep Yvan in Paris. His wife has left him and taken off for Thailand. His teenage daughters have chosen to live with his sister Ariane. He is ready to leave, to be transferred to Brittany, to give up everything... when the beautiful Emmanuelle – who has children as easily as she falls in love – and Leo, the little boy that his wife had with another man, come into his life. First feature film by Cécilia Rouaud – child actress (Marianne in Jacques Fansten’s Cross My Heart, 1990), second assistant director for Klapisch and Chéreau, then director – Je me suis fait tout petit is a delicate, imaginative exploration of the very contemporary theme of the recomposed family. A bittersweet comedy about the redeeming powers of love and friendship, enlivened by boorish characters: Lea Drucker as a holy woman full of little neuroses, Vanessa Paradis all awkward and light, and Denis Menochet as a fed-up high school teacher, whom the director describes as “a guy who pretends to be tough to hide the fact that he is deeply human”.