It was an unlikely best-seller: a novel about the reluctant friendship between a precocious child and the philosophical concierge of her building. “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” was an international phenomenon, so it was only a matter of time before Hollywood came calling. But “The Hedgehog,” the film made from Muriel Barbery’s novel, is as French as its source material. And it’s another crowd-pleaser: It received the audience award for most popular feature film at Filmfest DC.
Paloma (Garance Le Guillermic) is an oddly reflective 11-year-old. She can see that her parents and older sister are disappointingly bourgeois, though only in attitude, as they’re quite well off. Paloma can’t imagine taking her place in such a world, where even those she loves are snobs, so she’s decided to take her own life by her 12th birthday.
| On screen |
| ‘The Hedgehog’ |
| 3 out of 4 stars |
| Stars: Josiane Balasko, Garance Le Guillermic, Togo Igawa |
| Director: Mona Achache |
| Rated: Not rated |
| Running time: 100 minutes |
She chronicles her final days with a video camera that she takes everywhere. Through it, she begins to see that she’s not the only serious person in her apartment building.
Renee is, too — though she tries her best to hide it. The concierge (Josiane Balasko) cleans the hallways, responds to requests, and does all the other brute tasks involved in running the place. But in her free time, in a small room at the back of her apartment, she lives like an intellectual, reading great works of literature and philosophy. She covers her pursuits because she believes it isn’t decorous for an ugly, poor woman to have them.
These two have much to learn, and much to teach each other. But it’s the arrival of Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa) that really makes Renee more self-aware. The cultured Japanese man is as curious about the mysterious concierge as Paloma is. As Paloma needed to learn she wasn’t alone in her feelings about the world, so Renee must learn that she doesn’t have to be, either.
Such a summary might sound a bit trite, but “The Hedgehog” rarely is. It’s a literary adaptation displaying an understanding that, while film can’t reveal interior life as well as books can, the medium can better use the visual to bring iconoclastic people to life.
Le Guillermic is irresistible, making a character that could come off as a haughty brat utterly delightful. The lonely Renee might be the center of the plot — and Balasko plays her perfectly, at once resigned to her fate and awkward with the looks she long ago let go — but the point of the story is how Paloma learns to live by watching her older friend do the same. Igawa is fun to watch, the only character here comfortable with the intelligence and interests that can sometimes keep one at arm’s length from one’s peers.
