The Hedgehog

Mona Achache’s film, The Hedgehog (Le Hérisson), might have easily descended into a cloying tale of the miseries of Paris’ bourgeoisie. Eleven-year-old Paloma lives in a luxury apartment block on the Left Bank, and has only scorn for her anti-depressant guzzling mother, businessman father and self-obsessed sister, deciding to kill herself when she reaches her twelfth birthday. The wise, humorous central performance from child actress Garance le Guillermic as Paloma, however, imbues the film with all the wry pathos of Muriel Barbery’s novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by which the film is inspired. The film’s subplot – the relationship between the building’s bookish, antisocial concierge, Renée (Josiane Balasko, one of France’s most famous female directors and actresses) and wealthy Japanese resident Kakuro Ozu (the cinema-related significance of his surname does not go unaddressed in the film) is developed with genuine tenderness and warmth. Paloma’s precocity might rankle at times, but overall Achache’s film is a quietly moving, memorable one.