Filial love stifles as much as it protects. We know the song, or rather the lament: the intrusive mother and the son stuck in an emotional dependence which borders on pathological symbiosis. A fusional and toxic duo like the cinema produces in armfuls.
In Everything is going great, Noémie Lvovsky embodies this overflowing mother with her usual mischief, her slightly damaged fantasy and this vulnerability which always surfaces in her. She does what she knows how to do, and she does it well: a mixture of embarrassment and charm, which makes the character both unbearable and irresistible. Opposite, Hakim Jemili plays, once again, the nice, quirky boy, clumsy, a little naive, overwhelmed by events, a role that he masters to perfection but which is starting to have an air of deja-vu in his filmography.
Their face-to-face encounter, with delicious dialogues, is based on a comfortable familiarity. This could be enough to add charm to the family chronicle they have to play: generous actors placed in the obvious place in their register. Especially since Patrick Cassir captures something of an undeniable sincerity, casting a tender look on them and their characters. This filial love is inspired by his own.
The choice of kindness
The story advances on the marked rails of late emancipation. The introduction of a romantic issue (Marie Colomb, luminous) outlines a classic triangle, but immediately struck by the irruption of the illness (the mother’s cancer which relapses), like a melodramatic call to order. We fear the worst, but Patrick Cassir has the good taste to avoid tearful pathos and blackmail with juice-sucking compassion. That’s already it.
On the crux of mother-son bonds, there is a lack of incisive vision in the dissection of the ravages of maternal alienation. The filmmaker chooses benevolence, defuses the conflict, and it all seems very nice. The feature film only regains vigor when the absurdity gives relief and pep to the story, with Camille Chamoux formidable as an icy oncologist without empathy, or Rudy Milstein as an improbable caregiver. It is in these satirical lurches, when the humor overflows the polite chronicle and the love, that the film finds its momentum and its best moments.
