Americans probably wouldn't make this movie. It is too French. The story about Colette, a woman who wants to get pregnant to prove her ex-lover that she can have a baby (that she wasn't able while in relation with him) and thus hoping to return her old love (by having some stranger's child?!) and who waits for her most fertile days to replace her friend prostitute in an Amsterdam red-light window (?!) doing that obviously for years (because when she finally meets the object of her desire he is married and already has a child - !)
this is something Americans would never believe and accept. (BTW, this is the nation that makes movies about trained persons who take few guns and beat half of US Army with all their weapons and similarly well trained soldiers and a few FBI units for bonus, and they try to convince their audience and the rest of the world that this is normal and realistic.) First we don't even expect that this woman will be the leading character, because the movie begins with former prostitute Peggy released from jail trying to get her son Billy from orphanage. Later, however, the heroine (or the loser) of the movie temporarily abandons her hobby (or obsession) and helps Peggy find her son. However, the task appears to be not that simple. As she still doesn't want to waste her fertile days Colette takes care about Billy combining it with looking for fertile males. Apart from risky sexual behavior (trying to be fertilized by compete strangers obviously means unprotected sex with them, in the AIDS age and in highly risky population) Americans would probably also be shocked not only by developing relation between adult (not very young) semi-prostitute and teenage boy, but the author's acceptance of this relation (that becomes sexual during the movie) instead of politically correct condemning and crucifying the adult as well. (It is interesting that US rating isn't too strict for this movie, probably because the lack of graphic scenes.) For those who are afraid this could be one among many slow French movies with a lot of talk that often has no importance for the plot: yes, it is slower than average Hollywood products (where speed is not rarely substitute for real plot, things happen so fast that you have no time to see how pointless the plot is – while in French movies not rarely you are so busy making a puzzle of all the images and the words which almost randomly follow each other that you have no time to see that there is no plot at all), but contains more diverse logical subplots and characters than you'd expect in otherwise so typical French movie. The end of the movie is also logical but not too much predictable.
Vanessa Paradis carries the movie playing as if it's a completely ordinary character and behaving written in the screenplay wouldn't even surprise let alone shock anybody. Vincent Rotthiers (two years after sensational debuting in controversial but magnificent Les diables) seems to be rather restrained as Billy, but at the end of the movie you realize that this is just the way he had to show his character, a loser from the birth (unlike Colette who became it by choice) – son of an imprisoned prostitute living in orphanage and taken as teenager by unknown woman. There is certain development of characters but limited by their loser status, just enough not to stay one-dimensional and still stay believable.
If you find all French movies either boring or pervert better stay away from Mon ange. But if are more open-minded, if you can handle rhythm slower than Hollywood, and especially if you want something really cliché-less, than don't avoid this movie. You maybe won't be delighted, but you may be pleasantly surprised.
Vanessa Paradis carries the movie playing as if it's a completely ordinary character and behaving written in the screenplay wouldn't even surprise let alone shock anybody. Vincent Rotthiers (two years after sensational debuting in controversial but magnificent Les diables) seems to be rather restrained as Billy, but at the end of the movie you realize that this is just the way he had to show his character, a loser from the birth (unlike Colette who became it by choice) – son of an imprisoned prostitute living in orphanage and taken as teenager by unknown woman. There is certain development of characters but limited by their loser status, just enough not to stay one-dimensional and still stay believable.
If you find all French movies either boring or pervert better stay away from Mon ange. But if are more open-minded, if you can handle rhythm slower than Hollywood, and especially if you want something really cliché-less, than don't avoid this movie. You maybe won't be delighted, but you may be pleasantly surprised.