"Marguerite" is a Canadian French-language live action short film from 2017 that runs for 19 minutes (including a bit over one minute of credits) and was written and directed by Marianne Farley. Farley is mostly a prolific actress, so there is quite some irony to this work being her by far most known and successful now I suppose. At least successful because it has been steamrolling the opposition in awards ceremonies all over the globe winning 19 trophies, all the ones it was nominated for according to imdb before evntually coming short at the Oscars, but a nomination there is also a success for sure. Still, I must say this is probably my least favorite from the nominees, slightly weaker than the James Bulger movie and certainly weaker than the two other non-nominated short films. I will watch the winner tomorrow probably. This is the story of an old woman and her nurse. Early on there is the generic stuff like the younger woman peroforming some medical stuff on the older (played by Béatrice Picard by the way) and she tries to convince her to go to a hospital. But the key story is about the nurse being a lesbian and what this knowledge evokes in the old lady. She says she loved a woman once too, but that was a big sin back in the day of course, so she never told the one she loved (or anybody else probably). This notion can make us happy that we are living in more tolerant times these days and even if some social justice warrior frequently missing the right mark that we do not have to worry anymore to show our feeling to whoever we want regrsless of his gender, skin color or age. Well, most of the time. This admissionw as probably also the best moment of the film. The kiss was perhaps a bit too much, not really realistic as the nurse should also make sure she is not making the old woman any hopes, but the two lying together in bed afterwards I liked more again, so the ending was okay, probably the best thing about this film. Sadly, it dragged quite a bit in the first half, which is why I think the Oscar nomination and huge awards success was perhaps a bit too much, but all in all it is a solid movie and I recommend checking it out, especially if we take into account that Farley is far (no pun intended!) from being a prolific and/or experienced filmmaker. I'm curious about her upcoming works. Until these are released, go watch this one here and make sure you geta good set of subtitles if you aren't fluent in French.
Review of Marguerite
