QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM CANNES
Seventeen-year-old Fatima (Nadia Melitti) is the youngest of three sisters, enjoying a relatively peaceful life her Franco-Algerian family somewhere in France. A handsome young man wants to marry her, promising Fatima that he will give her a “princess daughter” just as beautiful as her. The very unimpressed young Lesbian eventually shuns his advances, immediately ringing some alarm bells. One of her sister chastises her for not being “feminine” enough, while at school she becomes a victim of homosexual bullying.
The story begins with some very graphic descriptions of sex. A male schoolmate of Fatima explains how a 50-year-old “milf” gave him champagne and sushi, before wrapping up the meal with a surprise cunnilingus. An older online date describes to Fatima her sexual specialities, comparing her vast expertise to a food menu. The conversation takes place inside the woman’s car, as a shocked Fatima (presumably a virgin) is still too green for bed. That’s about to change as she meets women of various nationalities: French, German, Algerian, before settling for a charming Korean nurse called Ji-Na (Park-ji Min). Other stops on Fatima’s journey to homosexual self-discovery include attending an LGBT+ pride, making friends with gay men (she’s presumably now at university?), and a menage-a-trois. The shadows of religious doctrine and doubt too are an integral part of the coming-of-age experience.
French-Arabic actress-turned-filmmaker Hafsia Herzi cleverly avoid singling out and slinging mud at Islam (which would have empowered Islamophobes), by having her local Imam highlight to Fatima that the prohibition of homosexuality predates the Prophet, and that both Christianity and Judaism are intrinsically homophobic in their original format. He conveniently fails to tell her that these three religions – Islam included – have changed a lot since, and they all possess an extensive history of same-sex attraction and love.
Dirty cinema has the power to turn the ordinary into extraordinary. The Little Sister does not achieve this. This is a story you’ve seen many times before, without anything particularly thought-provoking, innovative and/or evocative. While the performances are very strong and the some interactions genuinely moving, the script is just too repetitive. It’s heartwarming to watch Fatima discover sex, but it gets boring when you see it for the 7th or 8th time (the interaction is neither explicit nor sexually graphic, the steamy details resting firmly on lips and ears instead). A choir-like, vaguely sensual music score tries just too hard to insert sexy-ethereal vibes into the proceedings. Plus some of the subplots are somewhat trite, such as the literalist depiction of mental health disorder (with bottles of antidepressant of the table, and a weepy character suddenly unable to talk).
The story wraps with a tiny gesture of tolerance and solidarity. It fuels the hope that one day it might become possible to attune the second largest religion in the world with the LGBT+ agenda, or simply with the fact that same-sex lovers are not dirty sinners. A beautiful and symbolic signifier, however – as most of the film – highly derivative.
The Little Sister just premiered in the Official Competition of the 78th Festival de Cannes.
