Peau dAnge

Plot

Grégoire Guillaume Depardieu returns reluctantly to the countryside in order to oversee his mother's funeral. Being back in the small town where he was raised upsets him. He is not ready yet to accept the fact his mother died. While looking for some comfort and solace he meets a maid called Angèle Morgane Moré. He achieves to impress her by making up he was an important manager although he only has a minor position in a cosmetics company. After they've spent the night in a hotel he just leaves her but she cannot forget him, in particular because he was her first lover at all. Subsequently she follows him and even manages to get hired as the maid of one of his colleagues. Unfortunately she then has to realise that Grégoire is about to become the son-in-law of his boss. Angèle observes how he is going to marry another woman for other reasons than love.

Cast

Release

The film was presented at the Montreal World Film Festival (24 August 2002) and the Festival International du Film Francophone de Namur (28 September 2002) and then released throughout Continental Europe. An English subtitled Direct-to-video version including a making-of, a soundtrack, deleted scenes, a film poster and two short films came out the following year (28 May, 2003) as "Once Upon an Angel".

Accolades

At the Cabourg Film Festival 2003, Morgane Moré was awarded the Swann d'Or for Best Actress.

Critical response

Vincent Perez makes an interesting behind-the-camera debut with "Once Upon an Angel," a smartly put together, well-cast romantic drama that just needed a little more work on the script. Tale of a simple farm girl who loses her virginity to – but not her love for – a more emotionally complex, ambitious young man doesn't add up to a great deal, but features good perfs by leads Morgane More and Guillaume Depardieu

Perez, who co-wrote the screenplay with wife, Karine Silla (Laure Grenier in the film), directs with a restraint that elegantly counterbalances the material. Although we can see the direction the film is taking, the plot devices, contrivances and import of the each scene are so understated that their impact isn't fully realised until the end-titles roll. When you reach that point, the full force of the film becomes apparent.