The Hedgehog

The Hedgehog (Le Hérisson, 2009) is a French-Italian drama-comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Director Mona Achache adapted Muriel Barbery's bestselling novel about two hidden lives in a bourgeois Paris apartment building. Renée, played by Josiane Balasko, is the gruff concierge everyone ignores — which suits her fine, because she secretly reads Tolstoy and watches Ozu. Eleven-year-old Paloma, played by Garance Le Guillermic, has decided to end her life on her twelfth birthday rather than grow up to be as hollow as the adults around her.

Then a widowed Japanese man, Kakuro Ozu played by Togo Igawa, moves into the building. He sees through Renée's disguise immediately. Paloma finds in him someone who doesn't pretend life is fine when it isn't.

What makes the film work is its refusal to be cute about loneliness. The three characters are prickly, odd, and genuinely funny in places — and the connection that forms between them feels hard-won rather than tidy. Stream The Hedgehog (2009) online on iFILM.