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Alias Betty

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I am somehow reminded in the storyline of this film of the work of mystery novelist Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley; A Game for the Living, etc.) There is the same slightly genteel sense of mystery, realism and a women's point of view that characterizes Highsmith's work. In this case we have a young woman who loses her four-year-old son and then unexpectedly gains another. This intensely personal experience is set in the strata of contemporary French society. There are people in the projects, there is the underworld of petty criminals and prostitutes, and in contrast there are those who live in country homes beyond the suburbs. It is there that Betty, who is a novelist who has just published a best seller, lives.

What director Claude Miller has done with this material is to make it dramatic and to tell the story through the medium of film. That may seem obvious, but how many film makers fail to understand the differences in media and end up with too much talk and too little use of the camera to good effect? Miller shows us commonplace scenes of the projects and contrasts them with the fine homes of the well-to-do. He shows us the long limbs and slightly gawky beauty of his star, Sandrine Kiberlain, who plays Betty, and he contrasts her to the fleshy woman of the streets and bars, Carole Novacki (Mathide Seigner) who is the mother of the boy that Betty gains. He also compares and contrasts the craziness of Betty's mother Margot (played with a fine fidelity by Nicole Garcia) with similar, more muted manifestations in Betty herself. There are interiors of luxury and grace, and those of people living temporary lives in high rise block apartments. One gets a sense of France in the twenty-first century adding texture and place to a woman's story that could happen in almost any city in the world.

The opening scene shows Betty as a little girl on a train with her mother. We are told that her mother is suffering from some compulsive mental illness. We see her stab her daughter in the hand. And then we are fast-forwarded to the present and Betty is with her son Joseph, a scar on her hand, without a husband, going to her house in the countryside. Mother re-enters and we see that she is indeed a mental case, absurdity self-consumed and insensitive. When the boy falls out of a window and dies from the brain damage, Betty is in something close to catatonic shock, but her mother thinks only of her own welfare and seems indifferent to anything else.

And then comes the twist.

I won't describe what Margo does now because it is so interesting to see it unfold. At any rate, Betty is forced to come out of her depression and embrace new love and new responsibilities and to indeed commit a most criminal act, that of running away with another's child. And yet somehow we are made to feel--indeed the events of the plot compels us to feel--that she does the right thing in spite of her initial feelings and in spite of what would normally be right. Later on in the film there is another nice twist when the father of the dead boy returns and wants his share of Betty's success and fortune.

What I think many viewers will appreciate here is that the players look and act like real people, not like people from central casting. Alex Chatrian plays the second little boy and he is a charmer, and beautifully directed by Miller. Kiberlain's laconic and wistful portrayal of a woman with so many choices won her Best Actress awards at the Montreal and Chicago film festivals. She has the kind of beauty that grows on you, yet is not glamorous or glittery, but when she smiles, as she so seldom does in this movie, she lights up the whole screen. And Seigner looks like a common woman, not like a Hollywood star dressed up like a prostitute.

The men are also interesting and also very real. Luck Mervil, who plays Carole's boyfriend, is restrained like a volcano that one knows will eventually go off; and Stephane Freiss, who plays the father of the dead boy, and Edouard Baer who plays a scheming lower-class gigolo, are two very real varieties of men who prey on women.

The ending is witty and satisfying, and I can tell that Claude Miller has seen Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956) starring Sterling Hayden since part of this scene recalls the finale in that American film noir with the money flying out of a suitcase during a chase scene at an airport. Or perhaps that bit is from Rendell's novel (which I haven't read) and it is she who recalls Kubrick's film.

This is a thriller that manages to also be an engaging chick flick, if you will, a commingling of character and story that is in the best tradition of film making, and one of the best films I've seen in months.

I've always liked jigsaw puzzles. In my humble opinion, the universal appeal of the jigsaw puzzle is simple: it's the pleasant surprise at how all of the seemingly disjointed pieces fit nicely together into one compelling portrait.

Such is the case with the marvelously stylish French film, "Alias Betty."

Bridgette (played with winning subtlety by the lovely Sandrine Kiberlain), alias Betty, is a best-selling author who returns home to France, escaping the New York life she's led for several years. A return home means a reunion, of sorts, with her mother, an emotional sick woman unintentionally gifted in the art of psychological torture ... as well as a secret history of purely physical acts as well. However, the sudden death of Bridgette's young son, Joseph, sets into motion a series of cleverly arranged events -- a bit uneven in the film's first act only because not all of the characters -- nor the role they will inevitably play -- have been revealed. By the second act, the film manages to pull the viewer into its intricate web as the puzzle slowly begins to take shape, allowing the tension associated to one rather diabolical act -- the kidnapping of Jose to replace Bridgette's deceased Joseph -- becomes far more calculated and captivating.

The director manages to craft several storylines -- skillfully juggling the moments with only the assistance of miscellanous screen captures titling segments of the film, much like chapters of a book -- into one seamless whole. Despite some brief screen time for major participants in this well-drawn yarn, all of the actors are in top form, all purely driven by only the decisions their specifically designed characters could make.

Be warned: "Alias Betty" is not for everyone. The story's pacing is purposely plotted out to allow for each of the plot twists to evolve far more organically than most Americanized thrillers (don't look for any frenetic cuts or dramatically punctuating music), and the film's pleasant score softly weaves hand-in-hand with simple images. There is no 'rush to judgment' here. Consequently, there are no sudden moments of realization. This is a study in the psychology of character, and the tension is predicated on moments of character choices, not action. The film may frustrate some viewers who would've sacrificed such seemingly elementary subplots as Betty's ex-husband returning to reclaim his ex and even the seemingly unimportant police investigators struggling to find a single lead in Jose's disappearance.

However, the patient viewer will find reward in learning that every frame committed to the completed film serves its own purpose in the end ... once the picture behind the masterful jigsaw puzzle is finally revealed.

This is a wonderful example of a modernist suspense thriller. It keeps the viewer involved with a storyline that keeps you guessing yet also lets the viewer keep enough objectivity to evaluate the actions of the characters. It also has great visual design, esp. the use of color. Any film buff would appreciate how well put together this film is.

The English title on the Region 2 release does a much better job of luring us into this stylish French thriller, part psychological study and part ensemble suspense story. Betty Fisher and Other Stories tells us about Brigitte Fisher (Betty is her nom de plume), a young woman who has written a successful novel. In New York she married briefly, had a child and has return to Paris. She had an unpleasant childhood with a mother who at times would become irrationally angry. Brigitte's marriage lasted six months. Now her son is four years old and her mother has unexpectedly arrived for medical "treatments." Days later, Brigitte's son falls from a second floor window and dies. Brigitte (Sandrine Kiberlain) is distraught and depressed. Her mother takes steps to fix that...by stealing a four-year-old child from a lower-class neighborhood and bringing the boy home for her daughter. Betty at first rejects the child but then slowly becomes attached. And we learn about the child's real mother, Carole Novacki, a surly young barmaid, shoplifter and part-time prostitute. There's Carole's live-in boy friend, Francoise, a laborer from Africa; Milo, the bartender with a short fuse where she works; Alex, the hustler, long-time friend and occasional bed-mate of Carole; there's Eduard, Brigitte's former husband who shows up and sees her now as a literary bread ticket. There is a whole cast of characters, including the police who are searching for the stolen boy. Their stories swirl around Brigitte's story, sometime overlapping, sometimes just glancing by.

The stories come together at Orly Air Port in a violent confrontation which leaves these people and their stories getting what they deserve. Which means some die, some flee and some get on an airplane for Singapore.

The director, Claude Miller, does two things very well. He not only involves us with all these stories, he gives them all an overlay of uneasy tension. Especially with Brigitte, her mother and the stolen boy, there is an edgy dread that quickly establishes itself. It eases up only when we realize the boy will survive, but there still is the question of what will happen to him. Miller also gives us some strong characters to get involved with, even if we don't like them too much. There's no flashy acting moments, just the steady building of information about these people, which Miller lets us discover for ourselves. The actors, in my view, all do fine jobs. Sandrine Kiberlain carries the movie and she handles her character with depth and skill. Nicole Garcia, who plays Brigitte's mother, makes us nervous whenever we see her. Just how unstable is Margot Fisher? The story, by the way, is from one of Ruth Rendell's psychological thrillers.

This is a movie which keeps something of a cool distance from the many goings on. I don't think this is a fault. It helps us examine Brigitte's evolving feelings and helps us make choices about the characters. I'd be surprised if any viewer doesn't finally agree with Brigitte's choice.

Alias Betty looks and sounds fine. There are a few extras, including a "Making of..." feature and filmographies of the director and lead characters.

Three women carry the three linked stories adapted from a British novel by Ruth Rendell ("The Tree of Hands") by French filmmaker Claude Miller. Three women are also at the heart of "Le Ceremonie," another Rendell novel ("A Judgment in Stone") adapted by another French auteur, Claude Lelouch. Both are psychological thrillers that unsettle us, but "Alias Betty" (or "Betty Fisher" as it sometimes is called) is perhaps the most upsetting because in it children are in peril.

A novelist (Sandrine Kiberlain) is a single mother of a little boy who accidentally falls to his death. Her unstable mother (Nicole Garcia) kidnaps a boy to help heal her daughter. The trashy mother (Mathilde Seigner) of the kidnapped boy hardly misses him. Her unsavory friends find their way to the novelist, who is now attached to her "replacement" son. If you think there is no way these tangled lives can untangle, you haven't read much Rendell.

"Alias Betty" is impossible to predict. Its characters behave like real people making willful choices. So don't even pretend to know how their "histories," as Rendell calls them, will play out. By the end, your moral compass is so askew you find yourself hoping that a heinous crime will go undetected. If this multi-faceted thriller does nothing more than lead you to read Rendell, it will be worth the DVD price or rental.

"Alias Betty" is a dense exploration of integral components of society. The story is original, the cast brilliant, and the script and characterizations are so dense that more insight is gained form each additional viewing. Every character in the film is more fully fleshed out than you realize until the next viewing of the film. Every person has a reason to be there.

The most fundamental theme is motherhood, which is a significant exploration in itself, but the film does not stop there. It explores the age old question "do the ends justify the means." It juxtaposes the lives of the rich and the poor; and examines how there is severe suffering for all of humanity that unites us in our failed realization of hopes, and opportunities for a different course in the future. The film illustrates the tendency of the authorities to prejudice characters based on stereotypes, and the inability of the truth to be discerned in time to prevent casualties, due to the blindness with which stereotypes infect the beholder.

To the average American, France may seem like a monolithic society, but the film explores the many layers that characterize France: criminal mafia underbelly, rich professionals, the mentally disturbed, the painfully balanced, the incredibly French, those who are equally French but perceived less so becuase of their skin color, and more are all econmpassed in this film.

The main character, Betty is single mother who recently returned to France from living in the US. Betty is not her real name, but one she prefers to be called in an attempt to make a break with her painful past, and to live a simpler life. During her sojourn in the US, she became a successful writer, much to the chagrin of her American husband, who thought he was the writer in the family. The marriage dissovled, but her consolation in life is her son, all she wanted from life.

Her childhood growing up was difficult due to her mother's mental illness, and she aspires to be the mother she could never have. Her parents seem somehwat resentlful of her chosie to leave France for time in the US, and refer to Betty's son as "the American," rather than his name, Joseph.

Juxtaposed to Betty, is another single mother Carole, who lives with her boyfiend. The boyfriend is not the father of her son, who is the same age as Betty's son, but is the child's primary caregiver. The child is a stellularly gifted young actor (much like the kid in Kolya). Carole is slightly physically disabled, and ekes out a living as a waitress, and later through a East European mafia network present in France. Just as Betty has everything in love excpet meaningful love (with the excpetion of her son), Carol seems to have plenty of love and not much else.

When Betty's mother Margot visits, her actions cause the two worlds to collide; although they may not be initially unaware that the collision is a source of the new chaos in their life. I am generally skeptical of films that decribe themselves as psychological thrillers, but this film rises to the occasion to fulfil the expectations imbued by the description.

A note to the viewer, true "psychological thrillers," are just that; shocking to the mind by emotional devlopments and plot twists that reveal surprisingly different characters and relationships than you believed when you first met the people. This is a different genre than the "action thriller," which is predicated mainly on external stimuli and much less on character devlopment or complexity. Which is not to say that there is no aciton in the film; misguided jealously causes tragedy, a clever heist occurs, people are on the run. There is plenty of action in the film, but it is not the main focus, more periphery to the central themes and important only in the fact that it increases your familiarity with the characters and their true nature.

Based on British writer Ruth Rendell's crime novel A Tree of Hands, Claude Miller's Alias Betty (aka Betty Fisher and Other Stories) has as its main focus the juxtaposition of the innocence of a child and the guile of an adult. The title character is a successful writer who, as a young girl, was severely mistreated by her semi-deranged mother. Now Betty is divorced with a young son who suffers a horrible accident near the beginning of the film, plunging to his death.

The mother decides to help her daughter by finding a replacement, another young boy who's the son of a sometime hooker--who basically doesn't care about her son much at all. Because of that, Betty's mother (well played by actress-director Nicole Garcia) is easily able to kidnap him for her daughter. However, things are not so easy; Betty's ex-husband is a sleazy, smarmy guy who wants her more than ever, now that she's finally successful, and the guy the wayward woman/sometime hooker works for has strong thoughts about her too, as does her boyfriend who thinks she is fooling around with at least one other man.

The escalating series of events, all based on observations, assumptions, and dark emotions of the above characters (this combination is a staple of modern French film) is brilliantly merged by the director until a powerful climax that satisfies the requirements of a smart thriller and a riveting drama both. This is an excellent addition to French cinema based on the writing of British women crime writers (principally Ruth Rendell and Patricia Highsmith).

Highly recommended.

Anyone who is a fan of mystery writer Ruth Rendell knows that her novels are not that easy to adapt to film. That is because her books are propelled by psychological suspense and characters who are often driven by peculiar obsessions. That said, it is a delight to find a film based on her work that is done right! "Alias Betty" is based on one of Rendell's best books ("The Tree of Hands") and, as in most of her works, involves a host of characters from a variety of walks of life who find their lives interconnected in the most unpredictable circumstances. The acting and editing in this film is first rate and effectively achieves the remarkable atmosphere that Rendell's books do. Highly recommnended!