GFF 2010: Hidden Diary

In Hidden Diary, Audrey returns to her parents’ home on the French coast after ten years abroad, keeping her pregnancy secret from her distant mother, Martine. On discovering the diary of her grandmother, who abandoned Martine as a child, she begins to build a portrait of a frustrated 1950s housewife whose sadness was never understood by her family, but with whose desire for freedom Audrey can identify. Julie Lopes-Curval’s film stars two of France’s finest actresses – Marina Hands’ sheer sensuality in Pascale Ferran’s Lady Chatterley (2006) was unforgettable, while Catherine Deneuve… well, she’s Deneuve, isn’t she? Yet Hidden Diary is a rather soapy melodrama, and doesn’t really stretch either of the actors. Despite its slightness, the film does deal poignantly with women’s experience of guilt and isolation, now and in the past, and when the twist in the tale arrives, it’s subtly realised and allows more room for an intimate chemistry between the two leads to grow.