The Worst Mother in the World: for its irresistible duo of actresses (review)
Muriel Robin and Louise Bourgoin excel by pushing all the sliders to the limit in this first feature film, over which hangs the shadow of Albert Dupontel’s 9 Months Firm.
Judith and Louise are mother and daughter. The first is a clerk in a small provincial court, the second, a brilliant and implacable substitute for a Prosecutor promised to a flamboyant career in the upper sphere of the judiciary. And they maintain, to put it mildly, a complicated relationship which means that both of them rejoice in living far from the other, without seeking to renew the slightest contact. Until the day… Louise finds herself transferred to the court where her mother works. Or the promise of an electric reunion which will be kept 1000%!
The shadow of Dupontel 9 months firm hovers over this delightful first feature film by Pierre Mazingarbe. In its staging as in its direction of actors pushing all the cursors to the maximum, even if it means leaving some by the wayside. And in this little game, Muriel Robin and Louise Bourgoin prove to be brilliant accomplices, making each joint scene a fireworks display of low blows and vicious replies exchanged where their two characters seek the standing knockout of the other. With a mastery that prevents them from falling into caricature or histrionics. Like a scenario which, beneath the nonsense exchanged, implicitly recounts the silent sacrifice of certain mothers to allow their daughters to have the life that society had forbidden them to aspire to at the same age in their time.
By Pierre Mazingarbe. With Louise Bourgoin, Muriel Robin, Sébastien Chassagne… Duration 1h39. Released December 24, 2025
