EVERYBODY LOVES JEANNE

In life, Jeanne (Blanche Gardin, recently in Bruno Dumont’s France) doesn’t just want to succeed, she wants to change the world. She is an engineer, a contemporary woman, idealistic, a bit desperate, but nevertheless a warrior. A staunch ecologist, this engineer imagines a "giant machine to clean the sea"… which will never work. She meets up with an obscure childhood friend, Jean (Laurent Lafitte), also in the midst of an existential crisis. Together, their duo is a bit of a shipwreck, sort of a creaking parable about human angst. Presented as a special screening at the Cannes Critics’ Week this year, this first feature film by Céline Devaux uses a whimsical tone and a constantly renewed inventiveness. It’s funny, intelligent, and wonderfully innovative.