Review of the film “Room of Miracles” by Lisa Azuelos

The melodrama of Lisa Azuelos “Room of Miracles” was released – a film adaptation of Julien Sandrel’s novel about a mother who, with the help of man-made magic, is trying to bring her child who has fallen into a coma back to life. Julia Shagelman believes that the authors still managed to keep the difficult balance of sentimentality and emotional authenticity.

Thelma (Alexandra Lamy), a single mother in her early 40s, lives in the suburbs of Paris, works in a warehouse where goods are shipped to supermarkets, bickers with her boss who considers a call to the headmaster not enough reason to leave work early, learns English without much success to increase his attractiveness in the job market, and has a twelve-year-old son, Louis (Hugo Kestel). Her life is so filled with the solution of daily household tasks that, with all the unconditional love for her son, Thelma does not even have time to really talk with him, learn about his interests and dreams. And she considers his passion for skateboarding a dangerous whim – football training is much more beneficial for health, socialization and school success.

Alas, it is the skateboard that causes the tragedy: while riding it, Louis gets hit by a car, and the doctors put him into an artificial coma. The whole small family, including, in addition to mother and son, also a grandmother (Murielle Robin), who, of course, is always dissatisfied with the choices that her daughter makes, seems to freeze in some kind of limbo. It is not known when the boy will wake up and whether this will happen at all, but it is also too early to say goodbye and let him go, so grief turns out to be vague, pervading Thelma’s entire new existence and yet, as if not quite real. It is in this state, similar to a painful sticky nightmare that even after waking up she can’t shake herself off, she finds her son’s diary and the list of “ten things that need to be done before the end of the world” compiled by him. Well, this at least explains why he suddenly got into a fight with a classmate right on the eve of a car accident – this item comes first on the list.

In grief, people often seek refuge in magical thinking and belief in miracles, and this is exactly what happens to Thelma, especially since, thanks to the caring and competent staff of the hospital, she does not have to look after her son herself, and therefore she cannot distract herself from terrible thoughts. , mechanically performing procedures. Then she makes a vow to fulfill all the wishes from the list of Louis and convinces herself that then he will wake up.

Some of the points turn out to be very simple: to apologize to a classmate for some misconduct of the boy, about which the mother never finds out (she easily forgives him), or to touch the chest of a mathematics teacher (she also agrees with purely French ease). Others require time and resources that a working single mother doesn’t have much of: getting an autograph from a famous manga artist reclusive somewhere in Japan, or swimming with whales in the ocean. There is another dream that Thelma’s own bitter memories and psychological barriers prevent her from fulfilling: Louis would very much like to meet his father, whom he never knew.

Nevertheless, the heroine takes on the execution of the entire list, although she postpones the meeting with her former lover, whom she did not even inform about her pregnancy, until the end. She goes to Japan and finds a mysterious manga artist there, learns to skateboard herself, draws graffiti on the wall of a military unit, which brings her some trouble with the police, which, however, she easily manages to get out of thanks to a pretty neighbor with a law degree (Xavier Lacay), and goes to Portugal to dive with whales. Gradually, she realizes that just as Louis’ life was put on pause while he was in a coma, so her life was put on pause all the previous twelve years, when she was only a mother, forbidding herself to dream about something and want something only for myself.

On the one hand, the “Room of Miracles” looks like a blissful feel good movie about the power of maternal love, and even placed in beautiful exotic locations. But at the same time, the authors do not turn away from not the most comfortable thoughts about the sacrifices that parenthood requires, truth and lies in relationships, the need to accept life with all its components, including death. This keeps the film comforting without slipping into saccharine heartbreak.