Friday, January 12, 2018

Divines (2016) - FFF - Through the Eyes of Cat

By Cat



Number Rolled: 203
Movie Name/Year: Divines (2016)
Tagline: Un Film De Houda Benyamina
Genre: Crime, Drama
Length: 107 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Production Companies: Easy Tiger, France 2 Cinéma, France Télévisions, Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC), Fonds Images de la Diversité, Cofinova 11, Région Ile-de-France, La Fondation Gan pour le Cinéma, Agence Nationale pour la Cohésion Sociale et l'Egalité des Chances (ACSE), Commission Images de la Diversité, Doha Film Institute, Procirep, Angoa-Agicoa, Netflix
Producers: Marc-Benoît Créancier, Ifunanya Maduka, Jessica Rosselet, Pauline Sylvestre
Director: Houda Benyamina
Writers: Houda Benyamina, Romain Compingt, Malik Rumeau
Actors: Oulaya Amamra, Déborah Lukumuena, Kevin Mishel, Jisca Kalvanda, Yasin Houicha, Majdouline Idrissi, Bass Dhem, Farid Larbi
Stunts: Rémi Canaple, Thibault Granier, Cyrille Hertel
Blurb from Netflix: A shrewd teenager and her wisecracking best friend plan to get rich or die trying by following in the footsteps of a flashy female drug dealer.

Cat’s Point of View: 

Wow.

That’s my initial take-away from this movie. There was something profound and tragic in the telling of the story of these girls that transcended the script. This film took me on a dark ride – and while I’m not entirely comfortable with it, and it left me in a low place, I’m not all that mad to be there.

Of course, I did have to dry my face a bit before I could begin to piece words together. Have some tissues nearby for this one, just in case. 


For once, I’m not irked at Netflix for their plot blurb attached to this film. I am, however, shaking my head in disappointment with the IMDb synopsis. The movie is far more focused on what the former describes than the latter.

The film felt like it was dragging in a few places, and I didn’t get sucked far enough in that I forgot about the subtitles – it occasionally felt like work to watch this. Even with that said, I think that the performances elevated it beyond those minor annoyances. 


I really enjoyed the artistic element within the story - both in dance and music. It was certainly unexpected.

All told, I’m not sure that I want to watch this one again just because of the emotional toll of the story; however, I’d have no problem recommending this at all.

Languages
Speech Available: French, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Spanish, Italian
Subtitles Available: English, French (CC), English (CC), Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 81%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 71%
Metascore - 71/100
Metacritic User Score – None
IMDB Score – 7.4/10

Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating3/5

Movie Trailer:

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