Lucie, 15, lives with her father William. It is not her father who takes care of her, but the reverse, because William has multiple sclerosis, he remains stuck at home. Lucie tries somehow to live her teenage dreams, but it’s inevitably difficult with adult responsibilities. And the prospect ofa home visit from a social worker is a real threat: having no desire to be separated, the father and the daughter will do everything to deceive and try to appear as a “normal” family, without problems…
Loosely adapted from a play by Scottish author David Greig, “Normal” is a fragile film, but which draws its charm from its fragility. Director Olivier Babinet orchestrates a beautiful complicity between Poelvoorde, who embodies a cool old baba who has become a sympathetic wreck, and the very fair Justine Lacroix (revealed in the beautiful “C’est ça l’amour” with Bouli Lanners).
No dripping pathos, but rather understated humor – humor which, as the filmmaker Chris Marker said so well, is the politeness of despair. Returning to a marginal cinema, not commercial for a penny, Benoît Poelvoorde rediscovers the very essence of his profession and his temperament.
