User reviews

Greetings again from the darkness. The directorial feature debut from Mona Achache is based on the French bestseller "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery. The meticulous pace masks whirlwind of emotion and thought occurring in the three key characters. Three characters whom each of us could be guilty of overlooking on a daily basis.

For those who don't know, the film defines a hedgehog as a prickly-on- the-outside, cuddly-on-the-inside critter that is often misjudged. Our three characters all fit this description in some manner. Paloma (Garance LeGuillermic) is an 11 year old girl who plans to kill herself on her 12th birthday because no one understands her and her life is filled with what are the minor inconveniences of being an 11 year old - her mother talks to plants more than she talks to her, her father is a distracted workaholic, and her self-centered teenage sister is, well, a self-centered teenager. Madame Renee Michel (Josiane Balasko) is the building's caretaker. Self-described as old and ugly, she lives the life of quiet desperation, hiding with her cat and massive library of books and chocolate. The building's new tenant is Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa), a mysterious and elegant man who immediately sees through Madame Michel's prickly exterior.

Paloma spends much of her day documenting by video camera the goings on in her life and of those in her building. She often adds her insightful and humorous narrative to the scene as it occurs. Her view on life and its possibilities begins to change as she observes and gets to know Madame Michel and Mr. Ozu, and more importantly, observes their interactions.

The underlying storyline of an 11 year old girl contemplating suicide can be quite disturbing, but director Achache never really lets that occur. Instead we focus on very simple acts of kindness and subtle smiles and gestures that indicate life can be rewarding and worthwhile. I also found Madame Michel's surrender to the state of invisibility to be quite disturbing, but her awakening to be fascinating. She had not been rejected by society as much as simply overlooked.

Unlike many French movies that bombard us with rapid fire, overlapping exchanges, this one instead relies on patience and a sharp eye ... think of it as the slight squeeze while holding a loved one's hand.

Paloma Josse (Garance Le Guillermic) is a eleven year old girl disturbed by her privileged life in Paris. Her father Paul (Wladimir Yordanoff) is distracted by his government job while her mother Solange (Anne Brochet) drinks champagne with anti-depressants while talking to her plants. She decides she will kill herself in 165 days on her 12th birthday and begins to document the hypocrisy of the adults in her apartment building with her father's old camcorder. The apartment janitor, Renee, may appear to be a just another middle-aged woman who is bitter and grumpy, somewhat prickly, but when a new Japanese neighbor, Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa) moves in, he sees something else in her, something soft. This intrigues Paloma about "The Hedgehog", a term used to describe Renee. Despite the fact that Paloma and Renee are on opposite ends of the socioeconomic scale, both of them prefers to quietly observe life from a place of relative obscurity while dwelling on the edge of the society

The soul of the film is definitely the subtle love story between Kakuro and Renee. Kakuro surprises Renee by completing her comment that 'happy families are all alike,' with 'but each unhappy family is unique,' which is a direct quote from a novel during their first meeting. As Renee goes through her own transformation, the chemistry between her and Kakuro grows. It was then the three form a unique bond and we see Paloma and Renee emerge from hiding and begin to embrace life..

While adapting Muriel Barbery's bestselling novel "The Elegance of the Hedgehog", director Mona Achache makes a memorable directorial debut. She complements Barbery's style and enhances her work through Paloma's actions, doing things such as putting her older sister Colombe (Sarah Le Picard) in a 'fishbowl' by filming her through a glass of water (as a metaphor of Paloma's own life) and animating the drawings she created. While her character provides the narrative framing, young Le Guillermic makes an entertaining observer and narrator. The supporting cast as the Josse family gives a solid performance, creating a household which Paloma wish to escape from thoroughly believable. Igawa as Kakuro is gentle but understated and Balasko's Renee is a revelation, her performance is nuanced and graceful from within her dowdy exterior.

The Hedgehog is a heartwarming and unique tale, highlighting the importance of digging through the hard surface of life for the chance of discovering the hidden meanings and enjoyment beneath. Life, sometimes like the hedgehog, conceals a sophisticated elegance beneath a spiky veneer.

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Three characters and no story. And yet, the film leaves a deep mark on the viewer. No car chases, no explosions, no convoluted plot twists. And yet it is captivating. Simply because the characters of "Le hérisson" are interesting and full of humanity and seeing them connect with each other is an experience rich enough to spare a strong plot.

The three characters concerned by "Le hérisson" are very different from each other ( Renée Michel is an unattractive slovenly cantankerous fifty-four-year-old caretaker; Paloma Josse is an extremely gifted but suicidal eleven-year-old little girl and Kakuro Ozu is a distinguished seventy-year- old Japanese widower). But they have two points in common: they live in the same residential house and, mostly, the three of them are eccentric. Not outlandish or extravagant, simply not like everybody else. Renée, although she tries to fit in with the image of the traditional caretaker (middle-aged, unsexy and grumpy), has a secret (that I won't reveal here, sorry) and is a much better person than what she looks like; Paloma is a very intelligent little girl, advanced for her age, who sees the world with more acuteness than most adults, which leads her to want to take her own life. As for Mr. Ozu, the mere fact that he is Japanese makes him conspicuous by definition. And what is wonderful is that when these three "outcasts" get into contact they start doing good to each other, and to the viewer as well.

This is young director Mona Achache's first feature film and it is amazing how well-crafted it is (smooth editing, fine cinematography, excellent art work). And above all it does justice to the novel adapted (Muriel Barbery's best-selling 'L'élégance du hérisson') by capturing the special blend of gravity and lightness that makes it so distinctive. Mona Achache also had the genius (I really do not think the word too strong) to find the three ideal actors for the leading roles. Josiane Balasko is perfect as Renée, ugly outside but beautiful inside. Togo Igawa is a dream Mr. Ozu; he is Japanese to the core, genuinely has class and really exudes sympathy. As for the little girl, wow! Garance Le Guillermic IS a discovery! I had seen her once without noticing her particularly (as one of the kids in 'Je déteste les enfants des autres') but, here, she is downright outstanding. It must not have been easy for her to play a child too mature, too intelligent, too critical for her age, hiding her insecurities behind her aggressiveness but the young actress lives up to the ordeal. This trio had to be perfect. If a single one of these three actors had been unconvincing, the film would have failed mercilessly.

Fortunately, it does not. 27-year-old Mona Achache works wonders in every department.. Her film is at the same time deep, moving and fun to watch. Don't miss it!

Mona Achache's movie "Le hérisson" ("The Hedgehog" in English) is about a Parisian girl leading an unfulfilled life with her affluent family, and so she decides to commit suicide on her twelfth birthday. In the process of filming her apartment and family, the girl befriends the concierge.

The movie presents a good contrast between the girl's disillusionment with her posh but superficial world and the concierge's appreciation of what little she has, and showing how the concierge is able to develop a relationship with a Japanese widower who moves into the apartment building. The girl's filming her sister throughout the goldfish bowl is a metaphor for the new look that she's taking at her bourgeois existence. In the end, the girl does start to reconsider her suicidal plans. Achache made a very good movie, one that I truly recommend.

I suppose if you have not read the book on which this film is based (L'elegance du herisson) you might be a little bewildered. I and the the jam-packed audience I saw it with in Fremantle, Western Australia, had. It is a delightful study of three 'outsider' personalities: a precocious teenage girl, a very unusual concierge and a Japanese gentleman. It probably resonates more if you know France, especially Paris; even Europe would do. I am now looking for it on DVD (at a reasonable price for Region 4) because it is a film I know I will watch again and again for its delicate study of 'la condition humaine' - the character studies are delightful. Don't be put off by earlier reviews. Leave your prejudices outside the cinema and sit back and enjoy a delicate, delightful study of three very non-American people observed in a very non-American way. If Australians can appreciate this film, it should appeal to anyone with sensibilities.

I am now quietly used to going to movie theatres alone (in Italy this is still seen as an "odd" thing), I like it although regretting not exchanging opinion with some company, but this time an old woman was sitting, on her own, next to me, and at the end of the movie, we watched one another with our eyes suffocating some necessary tears, and she said: "how sad, but what a nice movie", I couldn't but agree with her (and innerly hoping I will still be able to go movie theatre, in my older years). "Le herisson" is the cinematographic adaptation of a best selling novel, a real literary case, which I have read, being quite surprised by the idea of making a movie from it, since it is a book where really little happens, and where the writer loves, and manages to play with the aesthetic, intellectual and emotional power of words.

But the young director Mona Achache managed to transpose the subtlety of the written word, in that she focused on the three main characters perfectly. They are three delicate souls, perceived by others as "odd", eccentric, different: Renée, the caretaker, apparently dowdy and ignorant, on the contrary very cultured and hiding a sensitive soul, Paloma , the "complicated", but in reality deep young girl, simply disregarding the void adult world, and the amazing Kakuro, the prototype of what a real man should be, refined in his soul, respectful, tactful. And you come to ask yourself why such high human qualities are viewed as odd, while they should be the normal way of living! In today's standardized, vulgar world, I perceived the movie as an effective antidote, supporting with strength the value of the uniqueness of the single human being. It is also a praise of delicacy and slowness, of the magic of a single spoken word or a single kind gesture, or a single soft glance: a few things happen, and a few things are said, simply because for a full life, we don't need to see or hear many things , we need a few but good things.

Despite its slowness, the movie is never boring, on the contrary I felt raptured by the delicacy and the calmness of these characters, wonderfully interpreted by three talented and actors. I identified myself also with the little Paloma, probably because she reminded me at her own age, when I liked being on my own, finding my secret refuge, where I could stay alone with my thoughts, as I grew up I realized how people could have seen my as a "difficult", even problematic child, but also fully realized how it is easy to be judged because different from the mass, but how important to keep your real inner precious world alive. Go and see it, you will be enchanted by these three simple, plain, but magic characters.

This film is so good I wanted it to run forever. The unfolding of characters, especially Paloma --the 11 years old girl--and the Concierge of the building, are so masterful, that one seats there mesmerized waiting to see the new developments.

The concierge character is a tour de force. The way she starts, as an obscure caretaker, moving the trash cans of the rich neighbors out on the sidewalk --only five huge de luxe apartments at her charge-- retrieving the empty containers the next morning and always moody and dry (as she herself puts it to Paloma, the girl, "the perfect concierge" according to the accepted urban legend about concierges in people's mind), and then because of her unexpected interacting with that precocious girl and the impeccable Japanese new neighbor, her subtle but unstoppable changes are something to be seen (as are also the changes in Paloma and the perfect Japanese new neighbor).

The little girl's mother, psychoanalyzed and medicated, watering her plants and talking to them (I do it too) with much more love and infinite care than to her own daughter, is fully drawn in a very succinct and accurate way.

Paloma is left alone to her own devices, and they only consist of an old fashioned movie camera --her father's gift to her-- perennially in front of her face (she films everything that moves) and her drawings (delightful) where she expresses her most inner thoughts.

This is a perfect example of a French film --I ADORE this type of French cinema--where very little happens but in such an intimate and delicate communion with the viewer that it absorbs one's mind completely, and doesn't let go till the very end, in the most poignantly and unexpected possible way, as it's the case in the present film. See it, it's totally worth your while.

I only wish you'll enjoy it as much as I did. Precious.

Something there is about little French films that is like discovering a free-floating water lily in a quiet stream: it approaches you, shares it lovely scent as it passed, and then continues on out of sight, leaving you warmly happy at the privilege of observing a gentle bit of nature if only for a moment. THE HEDGEHOG does just that. Mona Achache directs her screen play adapted from the novel "L'élégance du hérisson" by Muriel Barbery, casts an impeccable group of actors who bring to life this tale of how serendipitous nods of love can alter lives.

The title comes form the definition of a hedgehog as a prickly-on- the-outside, cuddly-on- the-inside critter that is often misjudged. And that definition applies to several characters in the story though it is most directly connected to bourgeoisie apartment house concierge Renee Michel (Josiane Balasko), a middle-aged and sour hermit who lives to mop the floor, distribute mail, and to give you a wary eye to passersby. The building is inhabited by rich people, a fact we learn from the narrator of the story - Paloma Josse (Garance Le Guillermic), an eleven-year-old girl disturbed by her privileged life in Paris. Her father Paul (Wladimir Yordanoff) is distracted by his government job while her mother Solange (Anne Brochet) drinks champagne with anti-depressants while talking to her plants, and her sister Colombe (Sarah Le Picard) focuses her shallow life on a pet goldfish. She decides she will kill herself in 165 days on her 12th birthday and begins to document the hypocrisy of the adults in her apartment building with her father's old 8mm camcorder. Her harsh judgments do not seem to include Renee: though they are at opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum Paloma senses something unusual about Renee, explores her apartment and discovers the extensive secret library in Renee's back room, and that the often untidy appearing and distant matron reads Tolstoy to her cat Leo. Renee's hedgehog appearance does indeed contain a cuddly inside, a fact that is revealed when a new tenant - Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa) moves in and he and Paloma realize they are kindred spirits. Mr. Ozu is a wealthy Japanese businessman and he strikes up a friendship with Paloma as they discuss their shared curiosity for the downstairs concierge woman and their delight in playing the game Go with one another. Kakuro's attention to and kindness for Renee creates changes: Renee is instructed by the maid Manuela Lopez (Ariane Ascaride) to have her hair done and to wear a new dress when Renee reluctantly accepts Kakuro's invitation to dinner. As Paloma observes the changes Kakuro creates in both Renee and in herself, her own coming of age becomes a much less pessimistic prospect. 'Planning to die doesn't mean I let myself go like a rotten vegetable. What matters isn't the fact of dying or when you die. It's what you're doing at that precise moment.' And from there the story moves like that free floating water lily - passing on through life enlightened by its presence.

Josiane Belasko, Garance Le Guillermic, and Togo Igawa are brilliant in their roles. The script is quiet, intelligent and ultimately deeply touching, but it is the direction of Mona Achache that polishes this little gem to a glow. Clearly this is one of the finest films of the past decade.

Grady Harp

In this adept and well-acted little sentimental charmer, a screen adaptation of Muriel Barbery's bestseller The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a precocious and artistic little rich girl, an intellectual concierge, and a benevolent Japanese gentleman come together in a posh Parisian apartment building for a brief period of understanding, communion, and the beginnings of love. The story is a little like an episode from Kay Thompson's Eloise, but set in Paris with philosophical and orientalist touches, a girl who is more smug and priggish than cute and an increasingly saccharine trajectory that is only just barely saved by a tart finale.

Paloma (Garance Le Guillemic) is continually filming her annoying family, her Minister father, her mother who is addicted to Freudian analysis, tranquilizers, and champagne and makes more fuss over her plants than her daughter, her non-entity sister, and people in the corridor of the luxury five-unit apartment building. As she films, she describes everyone and everything for us in a whisper into the camera recorder. She has concluded that her life is a fish bowl from which there is no meaningful escape and therefore on her next birthday, her twelfth, she has decided she will commit suicide. Meanwhile she makes her films, stockpiles her mother's tranquilizers, and does drawings more likely for a professional illustrator than a sub-teen kid.

Meanwhile one of the wealthy residents dies of a heart attack, and the Japanese gentleman, Monsieur Ozu (no relation to the director, we learn later) moves into a flat miraculously and instantly converted into a palace of Zen minimalism with gray walls, black ceramics, and other delights, an oasis of quiet, aesthetic calm, and Japonism. Even the concierge, or building janitor (though the term today is usually "gardien," concierge being considered outmoded), Madame Michel (Josiane Balasko), has a place that's rather handsomely decorated; quite lovely wallpaper. Paloma's room is a throwaway, we get only glimpses of it, but it's obviously as elaborately crafted.

Madame lets Monsieur Ozu into his new place, and he discovers something: she has read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. And judging from the fact that her cat is named Léo, he correctly concludes she's a great fan of the Russian writer. He begins wooing her, starting by presenting her with an elegant two-volume edition of the novel. Other gifts and invitations follow, with dinner in Ozu's flat prepared by him, a private screening of a classic Japanese film on video that Madame Michel has, and finally a date at a posh sushi bar. With the help of a pal who's a lady dry cleaner, Madame Michel gets a complete makeover, with a fashionable haircut and nice clothes.

Paloma is ridiculously and ultimately unbearably clever, most of the other characters are mere objects, Monsieur Ozu is just an attractive gadget to draw Madame Michel out of her shell. Her place is full of books -- but TV-friendly too, though she probably keeps the set on with the sound off merely to play the role of the classic concierge -- an aging, overweight, ugly, irritable old bag who sits around watching TV all day. Madame Michel sits with a purring Léo (though Monsieur Ozu has even better cats, by the way) reading good books -- when she is not cleaning up in the courtyard and sidewalk and being wooed by the wealthy, mysterious Japanese gentleman (we never learn where the dough comes from).

Paloma, who partakes of some of the wisdom of novelist Barbery, a teacher of philosophy resident in Japan, announces during one of her monologues that she is sure Madame Michel is a "hedghog" (hérisson), prickly on the outside but possessed of an interior that's subtle and kind.

The Hedgehog/Le hérisson itself partakes of some of the essential qualities suited to international bestsellers. Its simplifications are satisfying, if you don't go too deep. Its world is appealing and somewhat exotic. Its truths are self-evident. To do her credit, the excellent Josiane Balasko gives a degree of complexity to her performance one could hardly expect from such material. She is, of course, the film's most many-layered character. At least she has the outer and inner layers Paloma attributes to the hedgehog. Paloma admires her because she has "found the perfect way to hide." She can spend hours in her back room with her great books, while appearing on the outside to be a frumpy old creature that people don't even see and never bother except to have her hold a package for them.

But the artificiality of ideas and the stereotypical nature of most of the characters make this, whatever its homely message of love and acceptance of life, altogether less humane and alive than a little film like François Dupeyron's 2003 Monsieur Ibrahim/Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran. That too was simplistic, but it had moments of life in it. Both films fade when compared to that other movie about a precocious girl's views, Julie Gavras' 2006 Blame It on Fidel/La faute à Fidel, which works through a child's sensibility to depict how -- from her viewpoint, anyway -- her family life goes quickly and irrevocably downhill when her parents become communist revolutionaries. Political realities stretch further than life lessons delivered in a completely contrived environment, even one in which a teenage boy can get laid.

This film received indifferent reviews in Paris after its summer (July 3, 2009) release, particularly from the more sophisticated media, but it looks like it might have good American art-house potential. It was part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema (jointly sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Unifrance) and screened at the Walter Reade Theater and the IFC Center, New York, in March 2010.

If you liked "Amelie" and its "magical realism", you'll probably like this film's naiveté. If you didn't... you'll just endure it :).

Can "films starring kids" succeed? Indeed! Stella (2009) is a good case in point. Also "Blame It on Fidel". This film will probably remind you of "something" both of Stella and "Seraphine", because of the "straight-out-of-the-bed unshavelled look" of the main character, but who has a "hidden secret/ sensibility". But again, Seraphine is a work of art, and a daring one. Herisson falters both emotionally and artistically. It has some pedagogic intentions, like when they quote twice, even showing the book, the trite Tolstoi quote about happy and sad families being alike and different. Or the "Freudian death wish" (thrice).

From the start this film tries to make us instantly like Paloma, then her classy and neurotic mum, then Renée (completely opposite character), finally leading us to believe the romance between her and Kakuro, the new tenant, is all but "written in the stars" when sorry, I didn't see any chemistry between the characters, and thought all the intimacy scenes were awkward, not believable. And I don't want to speak about the ending, so contrived, and yes, it has been done before, way better, by a host of great filmmakers. There is not much of a "social context", strange for a French film. Only the occasional touch of "class struggle" from Renée when she says she conforms to the stereotype people have of her job (true), or when she is literally not seen by the other posh tenants when she undergoes the classic "Cinderella" transformation. All with signs of the difference money makes, like the lent dress she wears, contrast this with the ultra expensive flat of Kakuro, playing the Requiem in the toilet and with a kitchen that looks from a designer magazine.

Ariane Ascaride plays a likable secondary role, she's the most natural of all the cast by far. There are a lots of cats in the film. Palmoa of course has some nuggets of child wisdom, like when she notices: "don't let the cat out, nor the concierge in". But they don't fit in at all in the story, which never seems to go anywhere, doesn't solve Paloma's "funny" grim outlook and suicidal tendencies, nor her family's idiosyncrasies. Her sister and father are just there for some "comic relief", but Paloma, like the concierge, is also a hedgehog, in the sense of she relating to the world only in her own terms. That, the refreshing outlook of children of our adult routine, should be enough material for a good film, and it has been. But my take anyway is that, like most recipes, sometimes it just doesn't work well...

I agree with Chris Knipp from IMDb that Paloma is ridiculously clever, there are no clues on how Kakuro transformed his apartment or where does he get all the cash, and basically, how this film has the classic structure of a best seller: "Its simplifications are satisfying, if you don't go too deep".

This movie is like a cup of hot chocolate, a good book, and a cat sleeping in your lap. It's warm, loving, funny, sad, intelligent and quiet.

Apologies, if the metaphor sounds cliché or boring. But nothing in the movie makes simple happiness, love, sadness, or loss look that way. Instead it treasures the lives of everyone and admires our faults and habits with the refreshing curiosity of an intelligent, rebellious little girl.

I was about to give it 8 stars... but then I thought about how I felt during the film and added one more star.. from my heart *sob*

This is a very charming and thought-provoking movie. It displays prejudice and stereotyping, to deliver the message that every person is a person, independently of their role in our lifes. But some people assimilate their roles to the point of forgetting they're much more themselves. The story develops slowly, at the perfect pace, in a dynamic way, allowing the viewer to assimilate the many different points that are developed at the same time. The different image types (from the movie itself, and from Paloma's filmings) help keep it interesting. Added to the beautiful soundtrack, it leads you to the mood where you'll open your mind to the questions the director wanted you to think about. The acting is also superb, specially Josiane Balasko. With an original story and engaging characters, this is a must see. And must think, afterwards.

This concierge lives a dull life on the surface. She,s fat, ugly and unkind. In her own views anyway. But she has her cat and her books. Just quality literature.

Then this 11-year-old girl turns up, who lives in a truly dysfunctional family. And so does this old cultivated Japanese man. He sees her and the girl sees her. And they also see what's inside the hedgehog.

A warm and hopeful film about a character you meet every day, anywhere, and don't think much about. Which obviously is a mistake. People who are seen will show things you never thought you and they had. Regardless of their hedgehog physiognomy

The pre-teen 11 year old girl in Mona Achache's The Hedgehog is one of the most delightful characters to watch on screen in the past few years. Paloma (Garance Le Guillermic) decides to kill herself in a few months on her 12th birthday because she cannot bear the thought of living the rest of her life in a fishbowl. In voice-over, this decision is not a melodramatic response to her perceived lot in life or depression, but the result of a particularly witty form of logic. Paloma is not portrayed as a girl genius because she is overly book smart, but because she has the firmest grasp of pure rhetoric and logic any character has ever had before in a film.

Paloma spends her days sneaking around her large apartment and the fancy apartment building around it with her sturdy 8mm video camera documenting her family's neuroses and those of her neighbors. She can be extremely harsh, but true, when it comes to defining her mother, father, and sister through the lens. There is one neighbor Paloma cannot quite put her finger on though, which is rare, and that is the building's super who lives downstairs. From the unobservant eye, Renee Michel (Josiane Balasko) is a middle-aged and sour hermit who lives to mop the floor, distribute mail, and to give you a wary eye as you pass by. But there is something deeper than just what the eye can see which Paloma wants to find out. She realizes that being a building's concierge is the perfect place to hide in plain sight.

A new tenant moves in one day, Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa), and he and Paloma realize they are kindred spirits. Mr. Ozu is a wealthy Japanese businessman and he strikes up a friendship with Paloma as they discuss their shared curiosity for the downstairs woman and their delight in playing the game Go with one another. Paloma has an enjoyable scene where she eviscerates an elder dinner guest who insists Go is the Asian form of chess. Using her impeccable logic, she makes a fool of him by even suggesting this could be so.

The Hedgehog won the Audience Award for Best Film at the 2010 Seattle International Film Festival which is quite an achievement considering they screen hundreds of films in competition there. I will not soon forget what a great time I had being able to sit back and listen to brilliant dialogue in a film which is set almost exclusively in one building in Paris. Bravo.

A movie that started highly interesting then started slowly, but steadily going south.

A unique movie starts with an 11 year old introducing herself in front if her Super8 camera and confesses that she's going to commit suicide on her 12th birthday which will take place in 169 days, and decides that her swan song be a movie she makes with that camera about life around her to show how absurd life really is that it's not really worth living, and thus goes on filming everyone around her.

What's really wrong with this movie IMO, is that at some point around the middle, it shifted the focus of the story from the little girl to the relation between the Japanese man and the Concierge Renee, and suddenly the young girl repressed to the background of the movie that we practically forget about her existence and her little secret plan.

The movie had lots of potential but the writer/director Mona Achache chose to take an adaptation that was a little bit off, with a non- uniform pacing and somewhat slow, yet sometimes very vibrant, character development, or rather the lack of in the case of the Japanese gentleman.

Odd kid. We clearly understand this within 10 minutes with her ideas, haircuts or glasses whatever... But few scenes later these wise guy features irritate me also redundant prejudice and preconceptions about people consolidate my thinking. Her sisters opinions overtly explain it "you are a little creature which is intolerant, hysteric and detesting people." If the aim is that, I feel sharply. Main character is Paloma but the story and the message was transferred with Renee's life. Paloma indirectly effected from her life and Paloma's ideas change with the incidents.

I don't like Anne Brochet's acting, seems artificial.

Musics are very similar with each other or I feel like that. Remain technical details didnt annoy me

Until the end theme and lines stay constant on the same line, nice set-up and ending.

At first sight, this seems the poetic story of three misfits who find each other in a luxurious Parisian building.

Paloma is pre-teen girl, who decides to kill herself on her 12th birthday, disillusioned by the empty existence of her rich family. She does not fit in because she is too smart and much too disenchanted for her age.

Paloma is presented as very artistic, extremely articulated and quite cynical. It may seem endearing, but she sounds like a much older, smug person rather than a child. Besides, I doubt anybody in her age-range would be able to produce works of art of the quality shown in the movie.

Renée is the 54 yo concierge. Short, fat and unattractive, she plays the part of the ignorant concierge but she does not fit in, because in reality she is a very sensitive person who loves reading, especially Tolstoi. (But why is she playing the part, anyway?)

M. Ouzo is the new Japanese tenant and he doesn't fit in because... just because he's a Japanese in Paris, I guess.

M. Ouzo and Renée bond instantaneously on the incipit of Anna Karenina. A weird friendship develops and we're supposed to believe in the attraction between these two, who have zero sparkles (even of the intellectual type). Meanwhile, Paloma gets intrigued by their budding romance and by the idea that people can meet on a higher spiritual level than her family and she starts revising her plan.

I admit that this movie intrigued me, because of the unusual mix of characters. However, I give it zero credibility when it comes to the romance and - although definitely in a minority here - I truly disliked Paloma for her excessive smugness. Somebody from that background does not have any right to complain. She'd better bear with good grace all the disappointment that life will inevitably bring.

For a much better movie on teenage angst, I'd recommend The Virgin Suicides.

Having first read the book the movie is based on, I was skeptical that the movie adaptation would capture what made the book so successful. But I'm pleased to report that I needn't have worried. Beautiful writing and memorable performances drive this touching french film.