Great American family dramas tend to climax in rowdy feuds centered on tense holiday tables. Claire Denis' delicate French film "35 Shots of Rum" reflects more on the subtle intricacies of daily interactions, quietly and slowly building the story of a father and his daughter growing apart from each other.
The film revolves around a father-daughter duo living in Paris. Lionel (Alex Descas) and Joséphine (Mati Diop) share the apartment they've lived in since the death of Joséphine's mother, as well as an ease in each other's company that is the foundation of the film.
Lionel spends his days driving a commuter train and his evenings with his daughter, cooking and smiling and then hugging her goodnight. The small actions paint a picture of their relationship and the tender but tenuous bond of a family without a maternal influence.
Their immediate circle includes Noé (Grégoire Colin), an oft-shirtless upstairs neighbor who lives alone with his cat, and sassy cab driver Gabrielle, an ex-girlfriend of Lionel who tries to be the mother Joséphine grew up without — and the mother she herself never got to be. When Lionel's fellow train conductor is forced to retire, Lionel begins to assess the choices he's made and the life he has constructed. Meanwhile, Joséphine begins to move away from the quiet domesticity she's become accustomed to after years alone with her father, experimenting with relationships outside of her comfort zone.
Small details within these interconnected lives tell the deeper stories of their relationships.
The cigarettes Gabrielle chain-smokes on her balcony every night while waiting for Lionel to get home reveal elements of their romantic history; it seems like a wait she knows well. The longing that Noé doesn't know how to express manifests itself in the little pauses he takes at Joséphine's door before he continues on to his own. Much of the film is about waiting, and much of its impact comes from glances and silence.
The cinematography is the film's greatest strength: So many shots linger for a few heavy seconds on hands and in hallways, bringing the audience into each moment that the characters spend in ambiguity and doubt.
The characters spend the majority of their time in transit — and this reflects the underlying mood of uncertainty. It's no accident that two of the main characters make their living driving other people around. Lionel drives the commuter rail, watching the same landscape fade in both directions every day. His itinerancy is calculated: He follows the same paths, the same movements, and always returns to the same known territory.
Gabrielle, on the other hand, tells one of her passengers that the thing she loves most about her job is that it's "never the same thing." Without a family to call her own, she has none of the same routines or obligations that make up Lionel and Joséphine's lives. But the excitement she craves is ultimately unfulfilling. When she offers to share dinner with Joséphine, the viewer understands Gabrielle's particular longing — for a life where she would be coming home to something.
As a filmmaker, Denis places high value in the mundane moments — he knows these are what construct a life.
All of the performances in "35 Shots of Rum" are strong, but Nicole Dogue's Gabrielle gives the film its emotional heft. She wears her loneliness in every pore of her face, no matter how hard she tries to smile or smoke it away. Alex Descas is notable too, giving Lionel a strong, stoic exterior and yet subtly hinting at the deep tragedy he holds inside.
"35 Shots of Rum" works because of its simplicity. Though it could have benefited from fewer cutaway shots and tying up a few loose ends in its final scenes, the film is ultimately a beautiful meditation on the modern family unit.
