Inspired by The Seagull, Claude Miller's La Petite Lili takes place in
present day Brittany. While Chekhov’s play was set in a theatrical
milieu, longtime Truffaut associate Miller (Alias Betty) sets his film
in a cinematic one (a là Day For Night). The title character is an
aspiring actress (Ludivine Sagnier, Swimming Pool), who is seeing
experimental filmmaker Julien (Robertson Stévenin). She would prefer to
be working with an established commercial director like Brice (Bernard
Giraudeau, Ridicule), who is involved with his leading lady--Julien's
mother, Mado (Nicole Garcia). By the conclusion, Lili will have achieved
her goal, but at what cost? Well, unlike The Seagull, La Petite Lili
isn't a tragedy, so no one character will make out too badly. And as in
François Ozon's Water Drops on Burning Rocks, itself based on a play (by
Rainer Werner Fassbinder), Sagnier and Giraudeau make for a strangely
compelling screen couple.
