Film review: The Well Digger's Daughter

The Danes have Mads Mikkelsen, the Swedes have Michel Nyqvist and the French have Daniel Auteuil: actors whose faces seem synonymous with their indigenous cinema.

Director: Daniel Auteuil
Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Kad Merad, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Sabine Azéma, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey
Rating: (M)
3 stars (out of 5)

In The Well Digger's Daughter, Auteuil's work ethic is impressive.

Writing, directing and playing the lead, he uses a great script and lyrical pacing to transform a tiny vignette into something very charming.

Auteuil plays Pascal Amoretti, a widowed well-digger with five daughters. Doting upon all his girls, he does have a special fondness for Patricia. Wanting for nothing in life but a son to assist in the physically demanding well-digging business, Pascal realises his one last chance is to encourage Patricia to marry Félipe (Kad Merad), his partner in grime.

As obliging and likeable as Félipe is, he is no catch for Patricia, who has caught the eye of Jacques (Nicolas Duvauchelle), the wealthy shopkeeper's son. Exploring the social tropes synonymous with an age-old yarn of peasant girl seduced by her prince charming, The Well Digger's Daughter is hardly ground-breaking, but this does not prevent it from being irresistibly delightful.

There is eye candy to pull you in, but it's the cunningly underplayed performance of a man threatened by the loss of social status that sounds the violins. When Pascal fronts up for a showdown with the shopkeeper, his biting assessment of power and privilege is handled with such poise that you can't help but cheer him on, even if he is a bigoted relic from another era.

Best thing: Daniel Auteuil's clever scripting.
Worst thing: Subtitles unfortunately cannot convey regional accent differences.
See it with: A hearty French stew and an aged bottle of burgundy.

- By Mark Orton

 

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