[rating=10.00]
Alice, which just won the jury prize in the narrative competition of SXSW, isn’t just one of the best films of the festival, it’s an early front runner for one of the best films of the year.
Writer/director Josephine Mackerras, helming her first feature, has emerged as a powerful voice of modern cinema with her story of a woman doing whatever she can to survive as everything in her life falls apart. This French film is a remarkable ode to the lengths we will go to ensure the well-being of our selves and our loved ones, even if the choices we must make take us down morally grey paths we might never have previously considered. Mackerras displays a marvelous ability to depict humanity at its most raw with poignance and compassion, creating a story that’s as moving as it is empowering.
Alice follows the story of Alice (Emilie Piponnier), a woman who is happy in complacent in her life with her husband Francois (Martin Swabey). One day she discovers that her husband has not only squandered all of their money on prostitutes and mistresses but is also more than a year behind on their mortgage for their Paris apartment, which is now in the process of being foreclosed on. Unless she can get the money fast. With Francois out of the picture, Alice makes a desperate attempt at raising the cash by becoming a high-end escort, forcing her to confront everything she ever believed about life and how to live it.
On paper, the subject matter of Alice looks as though it might be heavy and dramatic. While it certainly has its share of drama, Mackerras balances it beautifully with liberal doses of comedy. The absurdity of Alice’s struggle is never shied from and is depicted well by Piponnier. Between her performance and the guiding hand of Mackerras, Alice transcends any clear genre label and becomes a film of pure, aching honesty.
Far from shaming Alice, the film does a remarkable job at portraying her sympathetically to the point where we root for her on her journey. There’s a vividness to her path of discovery, and each client she meets takes us deeper inward towards Alice’s true self. Throughout, we’re forced to confront our own selves and biases and our own notions and thoughts about what life ought to be. In one powerful scene, as Francois begs forgiveness, we can’t help but cheer as Alice retorts, “I’m not your whore.”
Ultimately, Alice’s journey is a journey of freedom, whatever that might mean. Alice is a film about discovering, knowing, and being yourself. The path to that kind of awareness is one that is inherently beset by pitfalls and mistakes, but those mistakes are all just a part of the process. We shouldn’t judge Alice harshly any more than we should judge ourselves harshly. In the end, we’re all just out here trying to figure ourselves out and whatever form our actualization takes should be embraced. Alice, more than anything else, reminds us of that truth.
