After a series of successes that sat slightly to the side of the French New Wave, Louis Malle broke ranks to make a pair of well-received Third-World documentaries, then returned to narrative, with a new personal bent, in this stunning, auto-biographically inspired coming-of-age tale. Set in the mid-‘50s, it’s a dramatic lark, consistently hilarious as it serves up the entitled world of its wealthy family: youngish Italian mother, self-satisfied doctor father, and one put-upon cook/housekeeper overwhelmed by their three obstreperous teen boys (all limbs & raging hormones). It’s Malle’s alter-ego, the youngest of the boys, who sets the agenda as he discovers his mother’s affair; battles his taunting older brothers (endearingly appalling between pummeling & arranging his sex initiation); fends off advances at Catholic School (Michael Lonsdale, stupendous!); and heads to a lux health spa as treatment for his recently discovered heart murmur. But murmurs of the heart are more than medical, with Malle’s script (grabbing a rare foreign film screenplay Oscar nom.) supplying character density worthy of Gustave Flaubert. (AN ADOLESCENT’S SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION?*) None of this possible without Malle’s easy technical command and ability to get the best out of his cast of young newcomers, and a career defining one from Lea Massari’s bewitching mother. The scenes between her & son Benoît Ferreux at the spa after her breakup, some of the most privileged moments in film.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *The Flaubert connection is also made in the film trailer. So much for special insight!
DOUBLE-BILL: The infamous incestuous turn of events (shocking only for not being shocking), along with Massari’s reaction, recalls Deborah Kerr’s legendary curtain line to John Kerr in TEA AND SYMPATHY/’56 (‘When you speak of this . . . and you will, please, be kind.’) where playwright Robert Anderson uses her as symbolic mother.
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