Maman est chez le coiffeur

An amiable yet entirely standard coming of age story, Maman est chez le coiffeur follows ’60s-era youth Élise (Marianne Fortier) as she comes to the realization, over the course of one particularly eventful summer, that her family and friends are perhaps not quite as happy as she might’ve initially suspected. There’s little doubt that Maman est chez le coiffeur, though treading in exceedingly familiar waters, does manage to come off as a consistently watchable endeavor, with the above-average performances certainly proving instrumental in the movie’s thoroughly mild success. While the supporting cast is quite good (Laurent Lucas is especially effective as Élise’s secretly homosexual father), it’s Fortier’s subtle, downright engrossing work as the beleaguered central character that tends to hold one’s interest even through the film’s sporadic lulls. Director Léa Pool does a nice job of capturing the feel of small-town 1960s life, and it’s also worth noting that the filmmaker has wisely resisted the impulse to populate the supporting cast with a whole host of impossibly quirky figures. Despite its myriad of positive attributes, however, Maman est chez le coiffeur is never entirely able to engage the viewer for more than a few minutes at a time – something that would seem to be the result of both the routine nature of Isabelle Hébert’s screenplay and the deliberateness with which the story unfolds.

**1/2 out of ****