Synopsis
Standing Tall (La Tête haute, 2015) is a French drama by Emmanuelle Bercot, free to watch online on iFILM. It follows Malony, a boy the courts have known since he was six — quick-tempered, charming and impossible to keep in line.
His case lands again and again on the desk of juvenile judge Florence, played by Catherine Deneuve as a tired woman who simply refuses to give up on a child. A youth worker named Yann, who came through the same system himself, takes the boy under his wing. The film tracks roughly a decade of Malony's life: rage, a first romance, run-ins, detention, a fragile chance at something better. Newcomer Rod Paradot carries the whole thing in his debut role.
Bercot isn't out to judge a difficult teenager. She films the years of adult patience it takes to keep one kid from falling through the cracks — no easy tears, no promise of a happy ending. The movie opened the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Stream Standing Tall online on iFILM.
Comments 0