By Your Side (À la folie)

For her new film after Regard moi (2007), Toi, moi les autres (2011), Une histoire banale (2014), La Taularde (2016) and the much-anticipated Suprêmes a biopic devoted to the rap group NTM, director Audrey Estrougo offers us here an intimate and psychological drama in which a family reunion does not take the usual turn.

The great strength of A la folie is to benefit from a successful casting and a scenario that is a pretext for psychological development of the characters but also to show what can happen in a traditional French home far from the often misleading appearances. Discovered during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival at the beginning of April 2021, this film held our attention.

Emmanuelle (Virginie Van robby) returns to her childhood home to celebrate her mother's birthday. Her visit brings back memories of her past, but also a difficult present with her psychologically unstable older sister. No one suspects that this family celebration will quickly take an unexpected turn and, above all, bring back to the surface wounds linked to the difficult past of these two sisters and their mother.

French independent cinema is often conducive to delivering successful performances and By Your Side (À la folie) benefits from the presence of actresses Virginie Van Robby (true revelation of the film), Lucie Debay (Our battles (2018), the series Cheyenne and Lola (2020), Anne Coesens (Diamant 13 (2009), Killers (2017), Never Grow old (2019), Duelles (2019). By relying on dialogues that ring true and by its originality, By Your Side (France) captures our attention from the first minute and shows us that far from the American blockbusters currently broadcast, films like By Your Side (À la folie) by showing simplicity in their format but a special care to the direction, editing and interpretation can please us and possess a certain charm.

By Your Side (À la folie)
Written and Directed by Audrey Estrougo
Produced by Yohann Cornu
Starring Virginie van Robby, Lucie Debay, Anne Coesens
Music by James Edjouma
Cinematography : Eric Dumont
Edited by Céline Cloarec
Production companies : Damned Distribution
Distributed by Damned Distribution (France)
Release date : April 01 2021 (France)
Running time : 82 minutes

Seen on April 01 2021 (SBIFF 2021)

Mulder's Mark: