Broadcast this evening on Canal +, this first film by Frankie Wallach paints a touching portrait of a colorful family. A little girl wants to make her grandmother – survivor of the camps – the heroine of her film. A happy mess.
What is it about ?
Frankie, a young director, is fascinated by her grandmother, her story of a survivor and her cheerful personality. She wants to immortalize her as a fictional heroine for her film, but that’s without counting the other members of the family, who will get involved in everything. With the Wallachs, everything is TOO MUCH … love.
Too Much Love, a film directed by Frankie Wallach, co-written by Frankie Wallach and Agnès Hurstel, with Frankie Wallach, Julia Wallach, Patrick Wallach, Agnès Hurstel, Hamza Meziani … On MyCanal
Love overflows
It’s a film made with little money but a lot of heart. In Too Much Love, director Frankie Wallach stages a film that mixes fact and fiction, true and false. She plays her own role alongside her grandmother – the hyper endearing Julia Wallach – and her troublemaker father, Patrick Wallach.
But around them, to compose the rest of the family, Frankie calls on confirmed actors. We thus meet Agnès Hurstel who plays one of her sisters – and who co-signs the screenplay – and in sketches, we can spend a moment with Garance Marillier, Valérie Donzelli and even André Manoukian.
From this hybrid device and this mise en abyme – the film within the film – emerges a crazy but exhilarating energy. The title Too Much Love transpires with every scene. The characters are excessive in expressing their feelings. Everything is skin-deep and terribly generous.
Canal +
We come out galvanized by Frankie’s overflowing love for his grandmother, Julia. She films it with great tenderness, and the mischief of a little girl. The emotion rises irreparably in these non-dialogue scenes where Frankie directs her grandmother, places her hands and arms during rehearsals and all the moments when she melts in his arms.
We also witness the birth of a young director. Before making this film, Frankie Wallach began to gain recognition as an actress. We have thus been able to see her in secondary roles and in particular in Versailles. But we can guess in her the energy and generosity of a Valérie Donzelli. No wonder she invited her in her film… Like a handover.
