Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

This film is a story of friendship between women – what it can and cannot accomplish. It's also a powerful illustration of the differences between European and American styles of filmmaking. It won the Cesar award in 1998 for Best Film. The two lead actresses also took a whole slew of awards for their performances. Amazingly, The Dreamlife of Angels was just the debut film for director Erick Zonca.

Historical Background: Erick Zonca was born into a wealthy family of Italian descent in Orleans, France in 1956. He settled on a career in films when he was just 15 and began acting classes in Paris the next year. He discovered American cinema while in Paris and moved to New York when he was 20, planning to become an American actor. His time in New York was rewarding in another way as well. He met and married a young dancer, Merce Cunningham. Though he had grown up in France, he had little experience seeing European films until he began frequenting the Bleeker Street Cinema while in New York. So, ironically, Zonca discovered American films in Europe and European films in America!

Zonca returned to France after three years, became a philosophy student, and found some work in television, first as an unpaid intern. He gradually moved up to assistant director for some sitcoms and documentaries. Zonca's debut film as a director was a short feature, Rives (1992). A second, Eternelles, followed two years later, and a third, Seule, in 1997. All of that set the stage for his first full-length feature film, The Dreamlife of Angels, in 1998. And what a success it would be!

The Dreamlife of Angels was all the rage at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. The two lead actresses shared the Best Actress award. Zonca was nominated for both the Golden Palm and Golden Camera and thereby established a reputation for himself as a filmmaker with a future. Later, Bouchez won the Best Actress Cesar in France and Régnier the award for Most Promising Young Actress. Furthermore, the film took the Best Picture trophy. Still later, Bouchez and Régnier shared the Best Actress Award at the European Film Awards. Since that triumph, Zonca has directed Le Petit Voleur (1999), which premiered at Cannes that year. He also wrote the script for Le Secret in 2000.

The Story: Twenty-one year-old Isabelle "Isa" Tostin (Élodie Bouchez) walks into the French city of Lille with a pack on her back, planning to stay with a old friend and look for work. Bad luck! Her friend has left town indefinitely. Isa cuts some photographs out of magazines, pastes them onto some colored paper rectangles, and raises a few coins selling them as "tourist views" to people on the street. Isa is a small young woman with a scar over her right eye, a toothy grin, and close-cropped black hair. One man at a lunch counter offers her "a real job" in a sweatshop, operating a sewing machine.

The next morning, Isa gives it a try. She lies about her lack of experience with sewing. During the lunch break, she makes the acquaintance of Marie (Natacha Régnier), a slender, blond with an attitude. Isa messes up so badly with her garment assignment that she's fired almost immediately, but at the bus stop, she wheedles Marie into letting her stay at her place. Marie's place turns out to be a small flat that belongs to a woman presently in the hospital along with her daughter. The pair had an automobile accident and both are presently comatose. Marie is taking care of the apartment and offers Isa the couch.

The two quickly become fast friends, hanging out at the malls and playing mock pickup games with guys in the street. They toy with one young man, Chris (Gregoire Colin), who has a hot car, and Marie kicks in his taillight as he pulls away. They try to get into a rock concert for free by schmoozing with the bouncers but get run off. Later, they run into two of the bouncers, Charly (Patrick Mercado) and Fredo (Jo Prestia), at a bar. These guys are a couple of bulky, leather-jacketed types who ride motorcycles. Charly takes an interest in Marie and the pair is soon sleeping together, on a couple of occasions. Fredo takes a shine to Isa, but Isa keeps him at arm's length.

Marie tries to shoplift an expensive leather jacket from an upscale shop, but is intercepted by two security guards. She is "rescued" by Chris, who happens to be shopping nearby. Chris, it turns out, is the wealthy owner of a nightclub, "The Blue," as well as the son of the owner of a hotel across the street. He's a classic womanizer and sees an opportunity to purchase a bit of indebtedness on Marie's part by paying for the stolen merchandise. Marie withholds any expression of gratitude, however, and, once outside, refuses to take the jacket. Chris invites her to come down to the club that evening. When the evening rolls around, Marie gives into the lure of the handsome and well-heeled scion and shows up at the club. She gets in a scuffle with a girl at the bar who belittles Chris's taste in who to hustle. Soon, Chris and Marie are in bed having hot sex. Chris wastes no time with sweet talk. He's a bit rough with her, though not outright abusive. It's obvious that he's used to having his way with any woman he wants.

Meanwhile, Isa is engaged in a subplot of her own. She's come across the diary of the teenager, Sandrine, who had lived in the flat but who is now comatose in the hospital. Isa develops a fascination with Sandrine, perhaps because the girl had a flair for writing and a bit of the observant nature of a poet. Isa goes to visit Sandrine at the hospital and learns that Sandrine's mother has died. Isa begins to visit Sandrine regularly and reads to her excerpts from her own diary.

Marie initially realizes that Chris is just using her, but she can't resist the fantasy of being a rich guy's girlfriend. Even after she spots him kissing other women, she still responds to his beck and call. Isa sees more clearly than Marie that she's embarked on a self-destructive course of action. "Don't humiliate yourself, you're not his dog," says Isa. Isa tries to reason with Marie, discuss the problem, and, when that fails, to physically prevent Marie from leaving the apartment to chase after Chris. Predictably, Chris dumps Marie but doesn't even have the courage to tell her to her face. Instead, he instructs Isa to give Marie the bad news. Isa withholds the information, initially, but finally has to tell Marie to prevent her from running to the club to look for Chris. The scenes of conflict between the two women are intensely emotional. I won't reveal any more about how the two plot lines play out except to say that Isa is trying to save two souls and ends up batting about .500. That's not counting her own, which is not really in doubt.

Themes: Superficially, one could view Isa and Marie as young women at a similar stage in their life and in similar circumstances. Neither one has job skills, money, or a steady boyfriend. They're each just scraping by. Both are lower class tykes and their respective childhoods did little to prepare them for survival in the world. Both are, in a sense, the rejects of society. Beyond those superficial parallels, however, the psychological resources of the two girls are quite different. In my opinion, what this film most reveals is the difference between two kinds of deficient upbringings. While it's true that we never directly see the childhood experiences of either Isa or Marie, enough is revealed to lay the foundation for why each of them behaves in the way they do.

Isa is a free spirit with a genuine capacity for caring. She reveals that her parents separated after only a year and her father remarried and had a second family. She had lived with her father for a while but had returned to her mother because being with her mother was "cool." Any young adult who can say that much about a parent or parents has at least had a pretty decent childhood experience. While it is likely that Isa received too little education or the extras that optimize development, she got what is most important: a positive, optimistic outlook on life, some resiliency, and a capacity to connect with others. If there were shortcomings in what her mother provided for her, they were only errors of omission. Isa understands the basic responsibility that human beings need to assume for one another.

Marie, by contrast, is badly damaged goods. Her mother comes to visit, but only to borrow money from Marie. Marie states that her father was "mad" to such an extent that he will never change. She screams at Isa, during one of their conflicts, "I've been humiliated before. A shitty life. Treated like shit!" That's all we really need to know. We don't need particulars. It's enough to know that's how Marie feels. She's been abused, whether physically or psychologically, to the point that she is seething with hostility, incapable of affection (as Charly points out), and unable to communicate. Whatever the specifics, Marie's parents damaged her by some kind of grotesque errors of commission.

Lower class families cannot always furnish their children with high quality childhood experiences for a variety of reasons. Both parents are typically out straight trying to make ends meet. There's not enough time or money to give the kids all that would be best for them. What parents most need to understand is that whatever niceties parents are unable to make happen (errors of omission), due to limited resources, are far less important than destructive influences (errors of commission). Isa may require a few more years to put a decent life together. She'll need to acquire some work skills and establish some relationships with men or women that she can draw upon and invest in. She'll get there, however, because she has the basics: a warm heart, self-confidence, and a positive outlook. Marie, on the other hand, is headed for disaster one way or another. The heartless Chris was the precipitating factor, as it happened, but it could just as well have been someone or something else. Marie was so filled with self-loathing and anger that she had become a bomb just waiting to explode.

Some reviewers say that this film is about the rise and fall of a friendship. Not really. Isa remained a friend to Marie to the end, even writing her an up-beat, kindly message as she prepared to leave, having been driven away. The film is not about a failing friendship. It's about Isa and it's about Marie. Isa's story is about a kind-hearted young woman who sets out to befriend two people, Marie and Sandrine. One proved unsalvageable. That the one in emotional pain turned out to be more fully damaged, even, than the one in a coma underscores just how damaging child abuse can be. Marie's story is one of self-destruction due to anger and self-hatred. Her relationship with Chris was very similar to a drug addiction. Between the rough sex and his rich-boy status, he gives her a rush. She got so hooked on that rush that she had to keep going back for more, no matter the consequences. Like any addict, she turned against those who cared enough about her to try to point out the self-destructive nature of her behavior. The result was a crescendo of instability and desperation.

More than one reviewer suggests that Isa might be gay or bisexual. I don't see any reason to suppose that to be the case. She reported having once had sex with a young man. She showed no indication of sexual interest in Marie, in, for example, a scene in which Marie is standing in front of Isa, nude to the waist. The argument that she might be gay (or bisexual) is based largely on her not hopping into bed with Fredo, after one or two evenings in his company. Has it really come to that? If a young woman doesn't bed a man with whom she spends an evening or two, she must be gay? Is friendship such a foreign concept these days that a young girl befriending two other young women has to be a lesbian? I don't know that she isn't bisexual. I simply say that there's no substantial indication that she is.

Production Values: The excellent script for this film was written by Zonca with Roger Bohbot. All of the situations seem entirely genuine. The arguments between the girls are never overdone and come off as entirely realistic. The film has relatively little plot, as is the European style of filmmaking. Hollywood films tend to be plot-driven while those from Europe are more often character-driven. The film has a simplicity that allows viewers a real intimacy with the main characters and the characters are much more fully drawn than is typically the case in American films. The story may be low key but the emotions are furiously intense.

Most of the film was shot with a hand-held camera in the cinema-verité style. That method resulted in an emotional immediacy that draws viewers right into the world of these two female leads. Over the course of the film, the shots gradually move in closer on the two women, especially in their riveting showdown scenes. We don't merely identify with them, we become part of their lives. The soundtrack provided a sophisticated mix of high clarity ambient sounds.

A big part of the success of this film derives from the performances of the two leads, as well as the chemistry between the two. They quite deservedly won Best Actress awards, together or singly, at Cannes, the Cesars, and the European Film Festival. Zonca insisted that the two young women room together throughout the shooting of the film to ensure a genuine chemistry. Both gave highly natural performances. Both projected strong emotions. With a toothy grin and saucer eyes, Élodie Bouchez is not as pretty as her costar but her character's good-hearted personality made her looks that much more pleasing. Bouchez previously appeared in Wild Reeds (1994). Playing the less stable character, Natacha Régnier had to portray emotional swings ranging from deep depression and anger to smugness and desperation.

Grégoire Colin was an excellent choice for the cold-hearted lothario, Chris. His previous work included Olivier, Olivier (1992), Queen Margot (1994), and Before the Rain (1994). Patrick Mercado and Jo Prestia provided some fine work in their supporting roles as the bouncers, Charly and Fredo. Prestia appeared in Irreversible (2002). The men in this film prove the point that looks can be deceiving. The tough, rugged, tattooed Charly is as kind and gentle as a pussycat while the slick, well-groomed Chris proves to be a vicious predator.

Bottom-Line: Unfortunately, we're limited here in America to a cut version of the film. Zonca opted to shorten some of the simulated sex scenes for the American release, since the alternative would have been the deadly NC-17 rating. As it is, the film is rated R, in America, for nudity, simulated sex, obscene gestures, violent tussles, and so forth. The Dreamlife of Angels is in French with English subtitles and has a running time of 113 minutes.

Who are the titular angels whose dreamlife we observe? The obvious answers are Isa and Marie. A less obvious possibility is Sadrine. Who knows what dreams might have transpired in the mind of this poetic young writer during her prolonged coma? Could it be that Isa and Marie were only figments of her imagination?

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age