The Hedgehog

Plot

Paloma is an 11-year-old girl quietly and unhappily living in a luxurious Paris apartment with her family. She is intelligent and observant and, in sensing disappointment and despair in adulthood, decides to end her life before she reaches it, on her next birthday, 165 days from where the story begins. Her dad's old camera in hand, she records telling moments in the lives of the inadequate humans around her: her antidepressant-dependent mother; her moody sister; petulant dinner guests. As Paloma prepares to finish her days, it is Mrs. Michel, the gruff-looking, reclusive concierge, who manages the building where Paloma and her family live. She hides her passion for literature from her bourgeois employers but is found out by the new resident, Mr. Ozu, widowed and Japanese, as a beautiful bibliophile in elegant disguise. A fiercely tender attraction grows between the three like-minds, showing Paloma a more lovely side of life than she originally thought possible and forcing her to reconsider her plan of suicide.

Critical reception

The film received positive review. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 88% of 67 critics gave the film a positive review, for an average rating of 7/10.