There’s a telling moment around halfway through writer/director Chloé Cinq-Mars’s Peau à Peau (Nesting) that cuts to the heart of the film. The main character Pénélope (Rose-Marie Perreault), a new mother who is sleep deprived and overwhelmed caring for her new baby, confesses that her point of view has shifted. Previously when she saw a mother and baby out on the street, she would only really see the latter. Now that she has a newborn of her own, all Pénélope can see is the mother: tired, struggling, and wearing baggy clothes to hide her body.
It’s a moment that hangs over much of Peau à Peau, a French-Canadian film that follows Pénélope as she struggles with postpartum. In addition to all of the physical symptoms of being a new mom, she also feels abandoned by her musician boyfriend, Gaspard (Simon Landry-Desy). He’s in the habit of staying out late, smoking pot, and sleeping through the night while she cares for their crying child. Throw in latching struggles and Gaspard’s unsupportive mother, who believes Pénélope should switch to formula so she can get a job, and Pénélope is dealing with a lot.
Well…things are about to get worse.
On a late-night walk with baby Lou, Pénélope finds herself in the middle of an armed robbery at the local dépanneur (convenience store). Cinq-Mars shoots the sequence in a disorienting fashion: Pénélope has left Lou in his baby carriage in another aisle when she’s confronted by an armed assailant in a red hoodie. Pénélope ignores the order to get on the ground, rushing back to collect her baby in her arms before sinking face down to the floor. Only then does she realize that she recognizes the perpetrator: it’s her younger sister, Charlotte (Marie Bélanger).
The problem is that her sister is dead.
The (better and more memorable) French title directly translates to “skin to skin.” Both titles are apt descriptors for the movie, which is as much about Pénélope’s relationship to motherhood as it is about sisterhood. The sight of her sister induces Pénélope to spiral, sending the film into a cascade of lucid dreams, memories, and hallucinations.
The result is a movie that fits comfortably in the trend of recent female-driven psychological films that could be described as “is she crazy or is it supernatural?” (see also: Knocking, Censor, etc). Peau à Peau eventually confirms that it is less preoccupied with the question: Cinq-Mars doesn’t treat Pénélope’s spiral as a mystery to be solved so much as an opportunity to consider how repressed trauma can resurface at times of physical and emotional strife.
The intersection of the past and the present results in some pretty unsettling imagery. A bath turns into a near drowning experience in a lake. Pénélope constantly sees and hears rats squeaking in the walls. And, in one moment that evokes the inciting incident of M. Night’s Apple TV show Servant, Pénélope leaves her crying baby in the car before taking a nap, forgetting all about the child for an unsettling amount of time.
Part of the reason that Peau à Peau works is because it consistently puts baby Lou in danger. Pénélope regularly leaves the baby behind, or sets it on the floor, or leaves it alone in the bath, as she investigates strange sounds or suspicious figures. She’s not a bad mother, but her exhaustion, her feelings of isolation, and her perception that she’s raising the child alone, have compromised her better judgment. This is why Pénélope’s line about mothers and babies is so resonant: no one sees her struggles. All they see is the adorable baby that isn’t gaining enough weight, the baby that she lets cry, or the baby that she neglects.
The other reason the film works is Perreault’s performance. At times unlikeable, prone to explosive outbursts and fits of emotion, Pénélope feels like a real, harried mother. While the film slowly unfurls layers of backstory about her complicated (near fatal) pregnancy, as well as her tragic past with Charlotte, this is rarely delivered via Cinq-Mars’s sumptuous visuals and Perreault’s face.
It’s a surprisingly physical performance, including one beautiful sequence when Pénélope is briefly allowed to lose herself to dance at a party before Lou’s cries inevitably draw her back to the demands of motherhood.
As Pénélope continues to struggle, the details about what happened with her sister increasingly intersect with (and inform) her current situation before the truth is ultimately revealed. Alas the pay-off is a little too expected and doesn’t feel quite impactful enough; if anything, it merely confirms that the film is more of a character study than a supernatural mystery.
Audiences who invest in Pénélope’s experience, however, will find plenty to like. Peau à Peau is an empathetic portrayal of the realities of being a new mother, anchored by Perreault’s emotionally rich lead performance and Cinq-Mars’s dreamy imagery.
Peau à Peau (Nesting) made its world premiere at Fantasia International Film Festival. Release info TBD.
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