Notre Dame

Notre Dame (2019) is a French comedy from writer-director Valérie Donzelli that you can watch online on iFILM. Maud is an architect and a single mother whose life is already a mess. Through a clerical mix-up, her design wins the competition to redesign the square in front of the Notre-Dame cathedral — the job of a lifetime, dropped on someone wholly unready for it.

From there Maud is pulled in every direction: a huge build in the middle of Paris, two kids, an ex-husband, and a first love who picks the worst moment to reappear. Donzelli takes the lead herself and steers the film at a tempo of cheerful chaos, with bursts of song, absurd bureaucrats and romantic detours. Pierre Deladonchamps, Bouli Lanners, Virginie Ledoyen and Philippe Katerine fill out the cast.

It's light, slightly screwball, and built around a woman trying to hold her career, her family and her sanity together while a whole city watches. No grand ambitions, plenty of charm and a very French taste for the absurd — easy company for an undemanding evening. Stream Notre Dame (2019) online on iFILM.