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Amanda review – a calm, healing film about life after Islamist terror

A well-meaning but sometimes obtuse French drama about a seven-year-old whose mother is killed in a mass shooting

The devastation and loss caused by terrorist attacks in Paris, Nice and elsewhere form the starting point for this determinedly gentle French film from director and co-writer Mikhaël Hers, about a fictionalised violent incident. It’s a calm, healing movie with a sweetly emollient musical score, and it consciously – counterintuitively – refuses to engage with the divisive political anger and revulsion that might be expected to be the focus of a film about terror victims. I sometimes wondered if it would look all that different if the character involved died of cancer, rather than in a horrendous mass shooting in a public park.

There is a kind of authenticity in it. Behind the headlines, there are loved ones who have to get on with their day-to-day lives. Death is commonplace. But Amanda is sometimes obtuse, with the look of a TV-movie-of-the-week, though the performances are utterly heartfelt, honest and sympathetic.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2C30gdU
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