I happened to see Danielle Darrieux play in this on the Paris stage and it was a one-woman show so clearly writer-helmer Schmitt has 'opened it out' as they say. Danielle Darrieux was born in 1917, Michelle Laroque in 1960 so clearly age wasn't an issue and I have no quarrel with Laroque in the role as she is an actress I admire immensely whom I have never seen give a bad performance and she is certainly at ease working with kids as she demonstrated in Malabar Princess. Here she deftly removes the tw out of twee and plays a no-nonsense pizza maker who forms at attachment to a terminally ill boy and instead of sugar-coating his condition she gets him to agree that each of his few remaining days will represent a whole decade so that he will, in theory, live close to a normal span, and persuades him also to write letters to God. As his parents are non-believers and feel unable to discuss his condition with him this has a touch of the Falstaff-as-surrogate-father-to-Prince-Hal about it. I have had mixed feelings about Schmitt since I saw - in another Paris theatre - his translation/adaption of Coward's Private Lives, in which he gave equal weight to all four principal actors whereas Coward had written two leads and two thankless roles as stooges, but Oscar is an enjoyable film.
Review of Oscar and the Lady in Pink
