The Godmother: Film Review

Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Hippolyte Girardot 

Director: Jean-Paul Salome

The innocent turned drug dealer is not a new narrative.

Neither is the net tightening around them story.

But thanks to a classy performance from French actress Isabelle Huppert, The Godmother (La Daronne to give it its French title) transcends its Breaking Bad parallels to something more gentle and in parts, almost farcical.

Huppert plays Patience, a woman saddled with 20 years of debt from a husband who died over a Caesar Salad, and whose life as a police interpreter gives veritable depth to her name.

Spending her time between transcribing wiretap conversations and spending time with her rest-home dementia-ridden mother. On the cusp of netting some local drug dealers, Patience discovers (in a massive coincidence that the story hinges on) that one of them is the son of her mother's favourite carers.

So throwing caution to the wind, Patience tracks down the drugs, and starts to deal her way out of debt - all the while working within the police system to continue her original investigation.

The Godmother takes a little while to get going - and were it not for Huppert's tour de force performance, the whole film would fall over.

By underplaying her role and never acting with anything but class, Salome structures a film around her turn, the calm of the storm and the centre of the chase.

The script's slyer edges work - from Patience's persuasion to be allowed a police dog for adoption (which is to be used for sniffing the drugs out for her own means) to a push-pull relationship with her boss Philippe (Hippolyte Girardot in a nuanced performance), the film works to build depth where there should really be none.

It's billed as a comedy, but in truth, The Godmother is less a comedy, more a traditional heist movie where Huppert's character always appears on the cusp of making a major mistake.

It builds to a climax that's in keeping with the understated edges of the script, but never sells the drama short.

You may not watch The Godmother with your sides busting, but thanks to Huppert, you'll leave feeling it was a classy affair that was worth investing the time in.