By Roger Childs

… a heartwarming, comedic story where faith, freedom and past love collide with surprising results. –Film blurb

Great filmmakers

Mid-year is the season for the New Zealand French Film Festival — a must for movie buffs. The French are consistently the best film makers in the world – a bold claim, but probably true. Filmmaking began in France during the late nineteenth century and they are still leaders. Other countries produce some very good films, but the French make consistently high quality cinema.

We have just seen our first movie of this year’s crop and it was a five star show. A Nun in the City is a highly entertaining comedy based on a credible story. Sister Lucie walks out of the convent into the main streets led by her bossy Mother Superior. Then she gets separated from her fellow nuns.

Making up for lost time

Lucie has been in the convent for twenty years having joined the sisterhood after her sweetheart Sebastien didn’t turn up to a meeting on a bridge. She has not been unhappy “inside” but now discovers a new world and two decades of social, cultural and technological change – take doors that open automatically for example! There is an innocence about Lucie but she is also resilient. She goes to the bank where her savings have been accumulating a significant 20 years of interest, and takes it all out. A young black lad on a bike teaches her to lie and this helps her to solve a crime. However, the Lord is her guide throughout and speaks to her through an AI cell phone! 

She spots a picture of Sebastien in a police station – he is accused of being involved in a robbery and is on the run – and she is determined to prove him innocent having seen on CCTV a tattoo on the criminal’ arm. Needless to say Lucie has all manner of adventures ‘in the city’ and plenty of joys, sorrows and accidents. 

In among her rites of passage she gets on the trail of her sweetheart and appears on mainstream television. This leads to a ‘Forest Gump style’ procession through the French countryside to the village where Sebastien’s people live.

Highly entertaining cinema

Marilou Berry is brilliant in the title role and puts herself through an amazing range of experiences from falling into a river to blowing up a drying machine. Isabelle Nanty is the formidable and hilarious leader of the nuns and like the others in the cast is impressively convincing.

Former actor Frederic Quiring keeps the story moving at a hectic pace and throws up plenty of surprises for the audience. Cinematographer, Christian Abomnes makes a meal of the French cityscapes and countryside providing a wonderful setting for the ever-changing story.

Try and track down Sister Lucie at loose beyond the convent walls, wherever you live; Waikanae readers will no doubt be able to see it at Shoreline later in the year.