Cross My Heart

Stars: Sylvain Copans, Nicolas Parodi. When Steven Spielberg remakes this French comedy, I hope he remembers to include the emotion that is missing from this totally false and idealized portrait of childhood. The film opens with an engaging premise: 12-year-old Martin's (Sylvain Copans) mother is dead, and he doesn't know what to do. When his friends find out, they pitch in to help Martin bury his Mom, and keep her death a secret from the authorities so he won't be sent to an orphanage. As the film progresses, however, and more kids become involved in the ruse, the film strays further away from credibility. First of all, the death of Martin's mother is never treated as the tragedy it would be in real life. To these kids, including Martin, it's a problem in logistics: before she starts to smell, let's pop her in a grandfather clock and bury her. Too, the singularity in purpose of the kids--who all swear to keep mum and help Martin--makes them look a lot more like Village of the Damned spawn than actual children (one of whom would surely spill the beans to mom and pop, or at least become upset in the face of death). Of course, these kids, who drop references to Colombo and Hitchcock, talk about the way men and women are as if they were raised on Truffaut, and have a few kissing scenes for no other compelling reason than the fact that this is a French film, are never remotely believable as kids anyway. The final straw comes when an adult mother discovers what's going on and is sworn to secrecy by the children--and she agrees to it. Not in this universe. Cross My Heart has a few mechanical laughs but not a drop of the human feeling that seems required by the subject matter. Audience: Critics raved, and foreign film buffs will be looking for this.