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| Olivier, Olivier |
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  (5/10)
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Runtime: 110 |
| Public Rating: 9.07 (57 votes) |
Director: Agnieszka Holland |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Foreign/Drama |
Year: 1992 |
| Writer(s): Agnieszka Holland |
| Reviewed by: Goatdog |
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Olivier is the favorite child of his mother. His father and his sister are both jealous of the creepy amount of attention she pays to the 9-year-old boy. One day, when he is on his way to deliver dinner to his grandmother, he disappears. The family fractures around this incident, but they were well on the way before. The mother goes off into trances and won't allow anyone to touch his things. She buys him a new set of clothes each year, just in case he returns. The father runs off to North Africa to avoid them. His sister seems normal, but it appears that she has developed telekinetic powers. The police officer in charge of the case, who was forced by the mother to vow to bring Olivier back, takes a transfer to Paris to flee the site of his failure.
Six years later, a young boy turns up at the cop's station. He looks like Olivier would, and he doesn't seem to remember much of his past. The cop is convinced it's him, and this seems to trigger some memories in the boy. The mother is brought in, and she throws herself at him wholeheartedly, as if she hadn't really lived since he disappeared. She brings him back to the family farm, and the father returns from Africa. The family attempt to restart their lives, as the enigmatic boy alternately confirms and denies that he is who he says he is. The sister doesn't buy it for a minute, but he intrigues her anyway, and they start a halting seduction that will turn out really horrible if he is really her brother.
I am of two minds about this film. There were parts, such as Olivier's re-insertion into the family, and the entire performances of the mother and the sister, that were beautiful and mysterious, and dragged me right along. There were other parts, like the sister's telekinesis, that made me sit up and say, "What the heck?" The Oedipal relationship between Olivier and his mother, and the odd relationship between him and his sister, are the strongest parts of the film, but too often it strayed from these anchors. Marina Golovine is luminous and entrancing as the sister, and Brigitte Rouan looks just like Susan Sarandon as the mother. Francois Clouzet is merely shrill and unsympathetic as the father.
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