A Common Thread Review

A Common Thread
Although bound by a passion for needlework, pregnant teenager Lola Naymark and grieving mother Ariane Ascaride have little else in common. Yet as they collaborate on a series of intricate designs, their opposites begin to attract and each comes to a better understanding of their unwanted situations.

by David Parkinson |
Published on
Release Date:

01 Jan 2004

Running Time:

88 minutes

Certificate:

12A

Original Title:

A Common Thread

Tentatively paced French flick about loss and redemption, with Ascaride typically superb as the embroiderer embittered by her son's death, while Naymark is extraordinary as the farm girl desperate to hide her condition and escape her dead-end supermarket job.

But it's Faucher's meticulous pacing, sensitive insight and intimate textures and close-ups that give the film its soul. A film about two women mending fabric may not sound like everybody's cup of tea, but this is also about the mending of broken hearts, and in depicting that, the movie succeeds with a rare economy of purpose.

Eleonore Faucher directs with true craft and an elegant eye in this exquisite debut study of the way in which women see themselves.
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