Une semaine sur deux (et la moitié des vacances scolaires) (2009)
Directed by Ivan Calbérac

Film Review

Precocious infants accustoming themselves to their parents' separation, a pre-adolescent's first painful experience of love, improbable rencontres that soon develop into turbulent romantic liaisons...  Une semaine sur deux (et la moitié des vacances scolaires) latches onto so many recycled story ideas that it cannot help resembling a closing down sale in a charity shop.   For his third feature, director Ivan Calbérac assembles a superlative cast but, with callous disregard for their talent, loses them all in the Grimpen Mire of a script that seems to have been written by someone suffering from an extreme case of attention deficit disorder.  There are some beautiful moments along the way (Bernard Campan is superb, as ever, and gives a sensitive and convincing portrayal of a divorced father struggling to reconstruct his life) but instead of weaving these together into a cohesive whole Calbérac is content merely to skate along the surface, jumping from one cri de coeur to another, like a manic télé-zappeur.  Anyone who has seen Calbérac's very likeable debut feature Irène (2002) can only be disappointed by this limp coming-of-age comedy-drama, which is barely salvaged by its talented cast.

Film Synopsis

Léa is twelve years old and wishes that her parents lived in the same house, like normal parents, instead of living apart to pursue their own separate lives.  It has only been a short time since her parents' divorce, and yet already she is tired of being shunted backwards and forwards between her mother Marjorie, who is too preoccupied with her work to show any interest in her family, and her father François, who is struggling to adjust to his new life.  Léa's woes are not helped by her irritating kid brother, an eight-year-old eco-warrior who is already obsessed with saving the planet.  As her parents set about trying to rebuild their lives, Léa has her first tentative encounter with love when she suddenly notices Hugo, one of her classmates.  She is about to see things from a whole new perspective...