La Vie Rêvée des Anges

This first feature starts out looking as if it's simply going to be a well-observed female buddy movie about two 20-year-olds: drifter Isa (Bouchez) and seamstress Marie (Régnier) meet when the former turns up virtually penniless in Lille. As the film progresses, however, with Marie falling, against both her own and her friend's better instincts, for a callous but wealthy young womaniser (Colin), it enters darker, more troubling territory. It's a beautifully insightful movie which views its characters (the type of 'marginal' folk rarely shown in the cinema) sympathetically but unsentimentally, and after the scene setting of the first half-hour, it grips like a vice as it proceeds to a shocking and profoundly moving conclusion.