A chaotic kid meets his match: a grandma with a fish, a bird, and zero patience for your BS.
Agathe and Regis have a little boy, Benoît, who is very capricious and sometimes aggressive. The couple, on the verge of divorce, is planning to go on vacation in order to better reflect on their decision. To do this, Agathe and Regis publish an ad in a newspaper: "Young couple seeks au pair grandmother to take care of little boy, 10 years old...". An old lady, Rose, shows up. She arrives with a fish and a bird she can't part with. The first contacts with Benoît are very unpleasant. Not discouraged, she realizes that he is unhappy and that he suffers a lot from feeling unloved in his family.
Acting
Gisèle Casadesus turns 'quirky elder' into emotional devastation.
Writing
Rose's fish and bird: absurd details that become heartbreaking.
Production
1976 France looks beige, lived-in, and quietly suffocating.
Director
Pierre Goutas
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Gisèle Casadesus was 60 playing 'old' Rose; she'd live to 103 and act until 101.
The 'au pair grandmother' was briefly a real French phenomenon—this film captures its awkward, tender reality before it vanished.
FR
