“A dream life”, my son my mess – Libération

Between family chronicle and social drama, Morgan Simon’s film about the toxic relationship between a mother and her ungrateful teenager doesn’t take off.

Unemployed, Nicole (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) digs deeper into her already considerable debt day after day to please Serge (Félix Lefebvre), her 19-year-old son. The ungrateful young man swallows up his mother’s last pennies like a capricious child, who, for her part, clings to him as if to suck up a little of the youth she sorely misses. Nicole makes every sacrifice – even deciding to donate her body to science after her death to save Serge from paying for her funeral – the duo comes to blows and Serge runs away. Although he once again depicts a toxic relationship between parent and child, Morgan Simon here moves away from the abrasive energy of his first film, Count your wounds (2016), to adopt a much more static style, which seems dedicated only to the performance of the actors. Nothing new in the landscape of the film of arguments: fleeting complicity, shouting and tears – we even end up dancing in the evening to forget our problems. The sparks between Nicole and Serge, unfortunately, hardly ignite the staging.

A rather bland assessment

After the son left, A dream life will however give way, for a few scenes, to another film, more unexpected, almost off-topic, but perhaps more intriguing. Nicole’s discussions with Norah (Lubna Azabal), a bar owner she becomes close to, are an opportunity for her to tell her story: “I’ve worked all my life, and I have nothing.” And here the family chronicle turns towards social drama.