English Title: Let It Rain
Director: Agnès Jaoui
2008
Comedy/Drama
Running Time 1hr 50mins
Cert: 12A
French with English Subtitles
“A delightfully bitter-sweet slice of life from arguably the most successful woman in contemporary French Cinema”
It’s August, the weather is bad and it’s raining. It’s not normal, but nothing is going to be normal. Husband and wife team Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Baci are on top form as director and scriptwriter in this nuanced tale of human nature. As cultures clash the protagonists realise their failings and emerge as better people.
Agathe Villanova (Agnes Jaoui), left her home town to pursue a career as a feminist writer and hoped to not return. Now, having turned to politics, she finds herself as a candidate for the town where she grew up. She takes advantage of the opportunity to catch up with her sister, Florence, who is sorting out their mother’s affairs a year after she died. It is not a happy homecoming.
Unlike her high-flying sister, Florence has never wanted to leave her hometown and still lives in the family house with her family and Mamona, their Algerian housekeeper. Mimouna’s son, Karim, is an amateur film maker, and is delighted at Agathe’s unexpected return. He teams up with his mentor, an incompetent has-been journalist, to make a documentary about successful women and asks Agathe if she will be filmed. She agrees, to pass the time during the terrible weather. Lives and loves entangle to produce a social comedy, humanist drama and gentle political satire – and a flock of sheep with impeccable comic timing.
