Noémie Lvovsky directs, co-writes and stars in the gorgeous French comedy Camille Rewinds which looks at a women who gets to travel back to her past and rewrite history. A hit in Cannes and a box office success in France, it focused on something many of us would like to do, going back in time and getting a second chance!
Camille, (Lvovsky) is a 40-year-old Parisian who is completely submerged in alcoholic heartbreak after splitting up from her former childhood sweetheart Éric (Samir Guesmi) after 25 happy years of marriage and a daughter. During her depths of misery, she writes herself off by drinking too much at a snowy New Year’s Eve party in 2008 and faints. When she comes to, she wakes up in 1985 where she is in hospital aged 16 again. Fate seems to have given her the chance to rewrite history. Her late mother is still alive, leg-warmers are a fashion hit and she has a portable cassette player bursting with Katrina and the Waves and other memorable Europop hits from the 80’s!
Camille goes back to school using the wisdom of hindsight to save her adult self from future heartbreak by resisting advances of classmate Eric. Full of good humour, we see him trying so hard with Camille, getting nowhere and he cannot understand why! Camille decides to try and change her destiny, but realises that it is not so easy. Will she fall for him again and go through all of that misery twenty-five years later? Or will she avoid him with the result never having her beloved daughter?
So she learns through this fairy-tale flashback that while changes to some choices in life may be possible, others must simply be welcomed.
Noémie Lvovsky does a great job as both actress and director. She is very effective in juggling the comedy and dramatic moments. Certainly convincing us as she mixes between being both the bitter, washed up Camille in the future and the wide-eyed teenager she becomes in the past.
Great cameos from Denis Podalydes (The Da Vinci Code 2006) as the physics professor in who Camille confides and French veteran Jean-Pierre Leaud (Last Tango In Paris 1972) as the jeweller who sold Eric the engagement ring he gave Camille 25 years ago that she wants to get cut off her finger.
So, if anything, it makes you wonder: “What if I had an alternative future from when I was 16?”
Kirstey Whicker
3.5/5
Now showing at Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas
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