It takes a village to bring up a child, runs the old saying, and Emmanuelle Bercot’s Le Tête Haute (Standing Tall) is about the modern village of well-meaning and desperately hardworking government functionaries, trying to raise a violent, delinquent child who has gone off the rails and become an angry and resentful dependent of the French state.
It is a high-minded, often touching movie which replaces the nihilism and miserabilism often to be found in social realism, and replaces them with a positive vision of what the state can – and can’t – do to help. Officials often tell the youth concerned that they are there to provide “structure” and in a sense that is what this film does – telling the story of a troubled life within a framework of officialdom: court hearings, social-worker interviews, counselling sessions.
It’s a movie with quiet strength and purpose, unembarrassed about its own optimism, perhaps inspired by Dardenne brothers movies such as Le Fils. However, Standing Tall is sometimes schematic, with elaborate expository dialogue, especially at the beginning, letting us know what is happening and what is at stake. There are also some pretty exaggerated performances – the aggressive teen repeatedly ends scenes by uncorking an actorly tirade, which often seems indistinguishable from the violent tirade he gave us in the previous scene.
Catherine Deneuve brings her habitual queenly presence to the somewhat improbable role of juvenile court judge, who is universally respected for the humane concern she shows for the unhappy souls who slouch into her office. Benoît Magimel is Yann, a tough, caring youth counsellor who – it is implied – has gone through exactly this process as a reformed criminal. Magimel’s own boyish looks appear to be cragging up and he is almost resembling a young Johnny Hallyday.
Sara Forestier plays the mother who cannot control her son – Malony, played by non-professional newcomer Rod Paradot. Malony is seriously out of line, addicted to hot-wiring cars and attacking everyone. Bercot has a funny scene in which the judge drolly asks for the scissors and paper-knives – and even a flower vase – to be removed from her office before the scowling Malony is admitted to her presence.
Eventually, Malony is sent to a juvenile rehabilitation centre in idyllic country surroundings, but it is here that he meets the daughter of the supervisor who is effectively teaching him how to read and write: like Yann, she too may have had her problems, and be another successful graduate of the system. The ensuing relationship changes everything.
There are some shrewd and interesting touches. Malony holds his pen in a crude and illiterate fist in those early scenes: later, when he has to sign some release forms, Bercot’s closeup shows that he now can hold a pen: things have changed. On the phone, Malony talks about the disability ramps that he has been making – but confesses that he finds disabled people “weird and scary”. For all his tough-guy act, Malony is scared all the time.
Standing Tall (perhaps another translation would be “chin up”) is a film about hope and it unfashionably insists that authority figures can be the good guys. There are moments of slightly easy resolution – a spectacular car crash seems to have no ill effects – and occasionally the drama is a bit pedagogic. But this is a refreshingly high-minded film.
