When Paloma Josse, the precocious, tow-headed eleven-year-old at the center of The Hedgehog, opens by telling us her plan for killing herself by the end of the movie, the clever audience member might think certain things. First, that she is pretty observant for an eleven-year-old. Sure, many of us fancied suicide once or twice in our youth, but it was for silly reasons, like moms or curfews or Kurt Cobain. Paloma comes at the problem of living like a seasoned phenomenologist, and never in the history of the world has a tween's argument made so much sense.
You might also think that Paloma can't actually kill herself by the end of the movie. That would be bleaker than allowed for mainstream cinema. Instead, the next hour and a half will be a somewhat uplifting black comedy where she learns the value of life and love and etc. You might also have flashbacks to other suicide-comedies, especially Harold and Maude.
The Hedgehog, adapted from the bestselling novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery and directed by Mona Achache, otherwise a quiet and understated film, sadly suffers for these thoughts. When Renée Michel, the crotchety janitor who lives on the first floor of Paloma's ritzy Parisian apartment building, steps onto the scene, we immediately know that her day-to-day routine is going to contrast with the bourgeois ennui of the Josse family. We know she's going to be the Maude to Paloma's Harold, hopefully without the whole granny-sex thing.
But Garance Le Guillermic as Paloma is so intelligent yet innocent, not so much a pessimist as a realist, that, at least for the first half of the movie, we don't mind. She documents with an old-style Hi8 camcorder the vicissitudes of her family: her pill-popping, therapy-addicted mother who talks to her plants more than her kids; her careerist, academic sister; her kind but mentally absent father. And every time she takes the camcorder from her face she has to move her round, librarian glasses back down from on top of her head, where they get tangled in her hair. It's one of those lovely, subtle childhood details that describes her and her situation perfectly.
Some aspects of her character are less successful though. When she play-acts death scenes it's without the earnest that made Bud Cort so funny and endearing in Harold and Maude. And when she does warm up to people, especially the aforementioned Mrs. Michel, it comes almost too quickly, as if her normally serious and evasive self was just a game she was playing at. It's cute to watch, but at the same time it makes you believe a little less in the other Paloma, the deadpanly-serious one that might actually try to kill herself by the end of the movie, which defuses the tension.
Of course, by the middle of the movie the focus switches to the titular hedgehog of the film, the janitor Renée Michel (or "concierge," since the French have to be classy about everything.) A self-proclaimed "short, ugly and overweight" widow, Renée hides from the outside world in a room filled with books, masking her intelligence behind the stereotypical demeanor of a nasty landlady.
Paloma is naturally fascinated by this secretive woman and they start a tentative relationship. They also share a love of Japanese culture, first bonding over In Praise of Shadows, which had been left open on her kitchen table. So what a surprise when the walking Japanese stereotype Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa) moves into a recently-vacated apartment in their building. Ozu might be as gifted as Michel at building cocoons, importing Japan into his Parisian apartment, complete with a Japanese toilet (they play music when you sit down, I shit you not.)
From here the focus is on the budding romance between Michel and Ozu, with Paloma as little more than interlocutor. Her family almost disappears, and this is where the movie falters. Not only because Mr. Ozu isn't very interesting (besides, you know, being Japanese), but because the movie supposes the only thing that can happen to a middle-aged woman is to get romanced by a tall, dark and fabulously rich man. For a movie with such philosophical musings this seems a little superficial.
And so The Hedgehog ends up being slightly less smart than it thinks it is. When the climax does come it's silly and poorly-executed and lends no emotional weight. This highlights the trouble with dealing with suicidal tendencies in movies. The reasons behind suicide are often intellectual and well-reasoned, like the sort listed by Paloma in her opening speech. They are easy to understand and easy to convey and more than a little hard to argue against. The reasons against suicide, however, are often emotional, having to do with people and connections and guilt and loss and fellowship and love. Despite what rom-coms try to tell you, these are a much tougher sell.
The Hedgehog goes through the motions but never really forges the necessary connections to drive these thoughts home. And so, it's a half a movie.
"The Hedgehog" opens August 16, 2011 and is not rated. Drama. Directed by Mona Achache. Written by Mona Achache, Muriel Barbery. Starring Josiane Balasko, Garance Le Guillermic, Togo Igawa.
