Our Children opens at the harrowing end of the true story it’s based on: with the image of a distraught mother (Émilie Dequenne) in a hospital bed, begging a police officer to ensure that her children — who have just predeceased her — are buried in Morocco. From this ominous beginning, the film rewinds into a jarringly sunny flashback of lovebirds Murielle (Dequenne) and Mounir (Tahar Rahim) to tell this horrifying story from the start.
What follows is much less obviously dramatic: Our Children shifts into slow-burn psychological thriller territory as we watch the gradual breaking down of Murielle at the hands of Mounir’s adoptive father André (Niels Arestrup), a wealthy white doctor who has used his status to insinuate himself into the lives of Mounir and his family back home in Morocco. This is a very subtle study of manipulation, one that hinges entirely on the performances of the trio, who fill with nuance roles that could easily have been tabloid caricatures. Above all, though, this is Dequenne’s film, and it’s the devastating ways she shows the life gradually being sucked out of Murielle that makes Our Children so difficult to shake off.
Synopsis
Young and full of life, Murielle has a promising future ahead of her when she meets and falls head over heels for Mounir. A wedding soon follows, and the happy couple quickly set about preparing to make a family. However, with family come ties, and none come as tight as that between Mounir and his adoptive father. As Murielle continues to bring new life into the family, frictions between Mounir and Doctor Pinget reach boiling point. Helpless to extract her husband and children from the wealthy nest that Doctor Pinget has provided for them, Murielle is drawn into an unhealthy family dynamic. There is only one way out of this nightmare, and for Murielle all sense of reasoning begins to abandon her.
Storyline
When a bright young woman marries her sweetheart, she inadvertently inherits his dependence on his controlling adoptive father, who forces them to live with him.
TLDR
It sounds impossible given the premise, but what happened after the film’s release deepens the tragedy even more.
What stands out
Dequenne’s gradual transformation from a happy young woman to a terrified pawn in André’s possessive power play is deeply distressing to witness. Anyone who’s seen Gena Rowlands’ superlative performance in A Woman Under the Influence will recognize similar senses of spiraling panic and helplessness in Murielle, as she’s gradually estranged from her family and made to feel like a burden in their claustrophobic shared home. A well-deserved winner of Cannes’ Best Actress award.
