- Starring
- Idella Johnson, Hannah Pepper-Cunningham, Lucien Guignard
- Writer
- Marion Hill
- Director
- Marion Hill
- Rating
- n/a
- Running Time
- 93 minutes
- Release Date
- n/a
Overall Score
Rating Summary
This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Sundance Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.
With Ma Belle My Beauty we get the debut feature for Marion Hill. In it, we’re introduced to Bertie (Johnson) and her husband Fred (Guignard). The newlyweds are enjoying their time living in France everything seems to be quite…well. That is until Fred invites Lane (Pepper-Cunningham) to stay for a bit. You see the three of them have a sort of history with one another. Lane was Bertie’s polyamorous lover alongside Fred. With her back in the picture things have gotten…a little awkward.
Ma Belle My Beauty is a film that treads familiar territory insofar as its story. Films like Portrait of a Lady on Fire tell a similar tale but do so far far better. While the intimacy is there as the two women have a passion for one and other but Fred is useless. He’s a do nothing character and it leaves viewers wondering why Bertie chose this doofus in the first place. The authenticity of Bertie and Lane is there and that’s a great look or the film. Pacing is a definite issue here. It all feels like sort of a slog. In all honesty this is a film that isn’t terrible but suffers from a bit of boredom and a lack of true direction.
The look of Ma Belle My Beauty is like a sun-soaked dream. It feels like a Parisian romance. One stellar key feature of the film was the music. This may not have been touched on but the married couple in the lead are musicians so the music had to be good. It really was. There’s a breezy and jazzy feel. The spanish guitar bringing us closer to the romance and that angle.
In the end, Ma Belle My Beauty isn’t a case of “don’t see it” no its moreso a situation where if the description interest viewers then it’s worth checking out but not worth going out of one’s way to see it.
still courtesy of Sundance
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