More Marseilles melodrama in the usual ultra-realistic style, and with Marseilles itself as co-star. Trim, 40ish Marie-Jo (Ariane Ascaride) is happily married to doting builder husband Daniel (John-Pierre Daurossin) but she has also fallen in love with craggily handsome bachelor Marco (Gerard Meylan), a harbour pilot. She has a job transporting the sick which gives her plenty of opportunity for dalliance with the frequently idle Marco, until one day her daughter Julie (Julie-Marie Parmentier) spots her at his flat and realises what Mum's up to.
Despite the sunny locale we know things are not going to end well, but what happens is a bit of a surprise. Ariane Ascaride gives her character plenty of the required sexiness, middle aged though she may be, and John-Pierre Daurossin does a great line in dog-like devotion (even when he finds out). I thought the Marco character a little unsatisfactory what is he in this relationship for? Also I'm still trying to work out why the Marseilles-Corsica ferry, in and out of the harbour every day, still needs a pilot. (Maybe the pilots, though redundant, have a strong union. They certainly have a flash shore office). Anyhow Marie-Jo needs some emotional fulfilment outside her marriage, and he's it.
Robert Guediguian has a talent for bringing interest out of the ordinary and getting us to like his characters despite their flaws. He also mixes in the Marseilles atmosphere and manages to produce a cheerful tragedy, if that's possible. His use of the same actors in film after film gives a curious continuity to his work, despite the different roles a repertory of the cinema, in fact. Ordinary their subjects may be I still find his films absorbing and on occasion moving.
