Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Emmanuelle Nicot
Starring: Zelda Samson, Alexis Manenti, Fanta Guirassi, Sandrine Blancke,
Jean-Louis Coulloc'h
Emmanuelle Nicot's directorial debut
Love According to Dalva shares a similar protagonist and
setting with Nora Fingscheidt's
System Crasher, that of a troubled young girl in a child protection shelter. But where
the German drama presented us with a young girl who needed to grow up and
stop acting like a toddler, this French movie does the opposite. The titular
Dalva (Zelda Samson) is a 12-year-old who believes she's an adult and
needs to be reprogrammed to return to childhood.
We find Dalva kicking and screaming as the police extract her from her home
as they arrest her father, Jacques (Jean-Louis Coulloc'h). Dalva has
spent the last few years being gaslit by Jacques to believe that his ongoing
sexual abuse is an expression of love. The two have moved from one location
to another to evade the girl's mother (Sandrine Blancke) and the
suspicious eyes of neighbours, but the authorities have finally caught up
with them. Dalva is taken under the care of Child Protection Services and
placed in a temporary shelter while her father is locked away as he awaits
his trial.
Dalva resents being taken away from her father, whom she clearly loves, and
refuses to listen to the adults who try to tell her she was Jacques' victim,
not his lover. She dresses in dowdy outfits clearly picked by her father,
and initially refuses to shed them for clothes more befitting a 12-year-old.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Jack Nicholson's character's dehumanisation is represented by the gradual
shedding of the clothes he arrived at the psychiatric institution wearing,
ending with him lobotomised and fully clad in the institution's patient's
uniform. Nicot does something similar here, but in reverse. The more Dalva
begins to realise what her father really did to her and embraces childhood,
the more childlike her appearance becomes. The movie opens with her looking
like a Victorian twentysomething and ends with her in a loose tracksuit,
hoody and pixie cut.
A piece of clothing offered as a gesture sets Dalva on her path to recovery
when her surly roommate Samia (Fanta Guirassi) loans her a jacket.
Initially abrasive, Samia becomes Dalva's greatest ally. While Dalva is
bullied and harassed by cruel classmates in the local school, she finds
kinship among her fellow residents at the shelter, where nobody is in a
position to be judgemental. "We're all scum here," is how Samia puts
it.
Dalva also bonds with Jayden (Alexis Manenti), her supervisor at the
shelter, though she mistakes his professional affection for something more,
unable to separate sex from love. This subplot is a little too predictable
and you might doubt the reality of a male adult being put in charge of a
young girl in Dalva's situation, but maybe things are different in
France.
In the lead role, first-timer Samson is a revelation. It's an unshowy part,
and even the histrionics are underplayed, but it's a challenging one as
Samson is required to play one character pretending to be another for much
of the film. DoP Caroline Guimbal's camera is often right in
Samson's face, capturing every minute nuance of confusion and frustration
plaguing the child. As Dalva opens up, so too does the frame, the early
close-ups substituted for wide shots of Dalva surrounded by her new friends.
Nicot uses Samson the way Hitchcock used his actors, often requiring her
young star to perform small but telling physical gestures rather than recite
an abundance of dialogue. The film's most startling moment sees Nicot place
the camera behind Samson as Dalva visits her father in prison. Clad in a
pink, girly jacket, Dalva drops the garment to reveal a wildly inappropriate
backless dress once her father enters the room. It's a brilliant piece of
visual storytelling that immediately hammers home Dalva's true feelings at
that point.
It's hard to think of more troubling subject matter than Dalva's backstory, but
Nicot has created a movie that is thoroughly charming. Watching Dalva open
up to kids her own age and embrace the simple delights of childhood is quite
affecting. While we're left in no doubt that Dalva has a long road ahead of
her, by the film's end we've come to believe she can make it into her teen
years, one new hoody at a time.
