Film review: At the outset of this captivating French period drama, an enchanting young woman dresses for an important expedition: she must travel to meet the man who might agree to marry her. “Please let him love me,” she prays. And why would any man reject her, so demure and pretty is this Rosalie?
Because, as it turns out, the belle with doe eyes and swirls of chestnut hair (played by the wonderful Nadia Tereszkiewicz, The Crime is Mine) is afflicted by daily growth of a beard on her face and a soft coating of body hair that she hides beneath proudly hand-sewn garments.
Rosalie’s embarrassed father proposes a marriage of mutual need between his secretly hirsute daughter and taciturn local cafe owner Abel (The Taste of Things’ Benoît Magimel). But whereas the unsuspecting Abel needs to ensure his financial survival, Rosalie just wants to be loved for who she is.
Rosalie is loosely based on real-life bearded lady Clémentine Delait, and aspects of the 19th-century French celebrity’s experience are repurposed in this excellent script co-written by director Stéphanie Di Giusto.
The period fascination with freak-show oddities grounds Rosalie’s travails in truth, lending weight to her inexplicably optimistic view that to let her beard grow and capitalise on the sensation she causes will bring about only monetary gain. And at first, the sour-faced onlookers in Rosalie’s small industrial village are shocked then beguiled by her warm hospitality and unconditional kindness.
But it’s Abel who struggles. Although his sense of betrayal is understandable the new husband’s disgust stings with cruelty.
Evoking Beauty and the Beast and Jane Campion’s The Piano, the film glides through its two hours with lovely performances and a beautiful orchestral score. There are baddies to fight, injustices to bear and the painful ramifications of Rosalie’s inescapable condition.
The tale nudges at interesting and unanswered questions of tolerance, the exploitation of aberrations and the fortitude of self-esteem.
But one thing about which we are left in no doubt is that ordinary humans, when suffering from ignorance and fear, are the ones who are truly beastly.
Rating out of five: ★★★★
Rosalie, directed by Stéphanie Di Giusto, is in cinemas now.
