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The shadow of Amelie hangs over this rambling French yarn from screenwriter-turned-director Serge Frydman. Instead of the winsome Audrey Tatou, Mon Ange relies on the star power of Vanessa Paradis, who plays a lonely prostitute reluctantly looking after an orphaned adolescent (Vincent Rottiers). There's a dream-like sensibility to this quirky road movie which traverses Belgium and Holland, yet Frydman's contrived screenplay ensures that Mon Ange's meandering story never takes flight emotionally.
For reasons that are never properly explained, Colette (Paradis) is desperate to become pregnant, so she approaches random taxi drivers, railway passengers, and pub-goers, hoping to find a willing partner. Her reproductive plans are disrupted, however, when she agrees to pick up the teenage son of a Peggy - a fellow prostitute - from a state-run home. Peggy is killed by her violent pimp and Colette finds herself fleeing the city with the boy.
"CONSPICUOUSLY STYLISED"
Mon Ange aims to explore the unusual relationship which develops between its psychologically damaged protagonists, both of whom cling to their fairytale beliefs. Billy has Oedipal issues to resolve - unsurprising when your surrogate mother looks like Paradis. But for all its stress on heightened feelings, this conspicuously stylised film is coy about what happens between the sheets during a night of intimacy between the duo. And you do feel sorry for actors saddled with such lines as, "Girls are like waffles. You must bite into them when they're hot."
My Angel (Mon Ange) is released in UK cinemas on Friday 15th September 2006.
