‘Jim’s Story’: Cannes Review

Dir: Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu. France. 2024. 101mins

The Larrieu brothers have constructed a profession on a sequence of happy-sad human comedies, a lot of them that includes their go-to main man Mathieu Amalric (Completely satisfied Finish, Tralala and so forth). Based mostly on Pierric Bailey’s novel of the identical identify, Jim’s Story marks a small however important change of route. Starring Karim Leklou, a seasoned character actor whose melancholic face remembers Peter Lorre, this can be a touching melodrama of fatherhood that depicts a relentlessly good man who one way or the other walks wide-eyed into an emotional disaster.

A bittersweet comedic drama

Set principally within the rural Jura area of France – additionally the setting of Un Sure Regard title Holy Cow – Jim’s Story rambles its option to a gently transferring pay-off. Intensely French in its geographical, societal and culinary landscapes, it ought to attraction on house territory following its bow in Cannes Premieres, however has the potential to attraction to worldwide audiences who’re in search of a bittersweet comedic drama.

Masking 24 years from 1996 onwards, this isn’t actually Jim’s story in any respect – it’s that of his father, Aymeric (Leklou). He’s a self-effacing drifter caught in a succession of no-hope jobs, a mild-mannered college dropout with a ardour for images residing in a small Jura village whose homes are scattered within the folds of a mountain valley.

Voice-over narration, particularly within the opening sections, flag this up as a movie with the flavour of a e book (the unique French title of each e book and film interprets not as ‘Jim’s Story’ however as ‘Jim’s Novel’) and, like many books, it rambles earlier than attending to the meat of the matter – which is Aymeric’s assembly with the free-spirited Florence (or Flo), a former grocery store co-worker performed by the all the time watchable and expressive Laetitia Dosch. She’s six months pregnant, and comfortable for the clearly smitten Aymeric to hold round and – why not? – play dad to the daddy she calls Jim. However taking part in dad shouldn’t be the identical, he’ll uncover, as being a father.

“I used to be like an actor,” says our awkward, lumbering hero in voice-over at one level, and that’s one of many actual takeaways from this achingly true-to-life story of extraordinary individuals experiencing extraordinary heartbreak: that, in the long run, all we’ve got are the roles we play. The images of people who Aymeric takes however can hardly ever afford to develop flash up on the display screen as color negatives. What we see as actuality might be turned inside out, simply as Aymeric’s world is step by step upended when Jim’s depressive organic father Christophe (Bertrand Belin) arrives on the scene.

Into the void steps Olivia (Sara Giraudeau), a French instructor with a ardour for dancing who asks little of Aymeric besides affection and help. Her independence is a caring one – in contrast to Flo’s, which fails to tell apart openness from selfishness. In the meantime, shot in pure gentle, the agricultural landscapes of the Jura shift from from snowbound winter to the cicadas of summer time – detached to human woes, but in addition reassuring us that nothing stands nonetheless for lengthy.