The Poet's Bride: an enchanted and enchanting interlude [critique]

Awarded for her screenplay at the Angoulême festival, Yolande Moreau returns to directing with a tale that is as joyful as it is melancholic.

Released in October 2023, The Poet's Bride East a film like an enchanted interlude. A film like a poetic declaration of love to those who prefer back roads to main roads. To (re)watch this Tuesday evening on Canal +.

Ten years after HenryYolande Moreau (César for best first feature film in 2004 for When the sea rises…co-signed Gilles Porte) returns to solo directing. And she plays the central role: a woman in love with painting and poetry who, as a waitress in a cafeteria, lives mainly from small-scale trafficking. A source of income that is no longer sufficient when she inherits a large family home that she must maintain. Which explains why she decides to take on three tenants, soon joined by a fourth man, her childhood sweetheart whom she has not had for years, a false poet but a real crook.

The Poet's Bride tells with infinite empathy, poetry and finesse this strange team that will improvise as forgers of paintings to provide for its needs. No room here for the easy picturesque. Through her writing (in tandem with Frédérique Moreau), Yolande Moreau goes to the depths of her characters, reveals their contradictions, the limits of this life outside the lines where utopia regularly comes crashing down on reality. But there is a joyfully melancholic tone, a way of telling this little corner of the province that only resembles her. And a band of irresistible actors, from Sergi Lopez to Gregory Gadebois, including William Sheller for his big film debut as a priest adept at cross-dressing who, in his spare time, plays ABBA on the organ of his Church! Quite a team.

Trailer :

William Sheller in The Poet's Bride: “I loved acting… but I'm not about to do it again!”