M, starring, written and directed by Sara Forestier - 8.4 out of 10

M, starring, written and directed by Sara Forestier
8.4 out of 10


M is a formidable tour de force, the oeuvre of an accomplished actress, writer and director:

Sara Forestier 

She has the leading role of a woman with a speech impediment.
People treat her as if she is handicapped, in an age when a handicap is called a challenge.

Lila is the paradigm in fact of what a challenge would mean and how society mistreats those who are different.
She could talk,but she does not dare to, because of the vicious circle or spiral.

When her interlocutors show signs of impatience, because she doesn't spill her words out in a flash, as it is de rigeur in this age of super fast interaction, she is blocked.
Therefore she refuses to talk, afraid, embarrassed, ashamed of the reaction of those around.

There may be a chance for redemption, transfiguration as she meets Mo aka Redouanne Harjane.
As she waits in a bus stop, he is asking for directions.

She doesn't speak, but makes somethings like a plan, a drawing of what he has to do.
They would become intimate and the man is willing to push her to talk.

Mo is a driver who takes part in some special car races,  games.
So he drives fast, scaring the girl, telling her:

If you want me to stop, just say stop.

This may work, but Mo has a secret of his own, a different challenge or impediment.
He is illiterate.

That's one reason why he is annoyed when she writes her answers, questions, lines of poetry, compliments.
He doesn't understand.

In fact, he has to ask others to read for him.
At one stage, he enters a pharmacy, claiming he needs reading glasses, for he cannot see the text on the phone anymore.

Thus, he makes the shopkeeper read it for him and then claims the glasses are expensive and doesn't buy them.
However, a child, Lila's little sister,  might help him learn to read and write.