Actress Sandrine Kiberlain's directorial debut, The Radiant Girl, centers on a 19-year-old Jewish actress in Occupied France in 1942 (the year Nazis rounded up Jews for deportation). When she isn't attending school, Irène (Rebecca Marder), who shares a Parisian flat with three generations of her close-knit family, also works as a theater usher.
While Irène rehearses Marivaux's L'Épreuve for her conservatory audition, her brother, Igor (Anthony Bajon), practices the flute. It's a pretty good life, except she's been experiencing dizzy spells, and her father, André (Marguerite's André Marcon), worries she may be pinning too much hope on her acceptance, and though she has an admirer in Gilbert (Jean Chevalier), he doesn't thrill her like Jacques (Cyril Metzger), a doctor's assistant. She even fakes nearsightedness to have excuses to see him.
As Irène frets over teenage concerns, André and her grandmother, Marceline (F for Fake's Françoise Widhoff), agonize about carrying identification papers stamped "Jew." When police arrest a Jewish neighbor for no apparent reason, and when Irène's scene partner, Jo (Ben Attal), disappears without a trace, the seriousness of the situation starts to sink in. Then, the family has to relinquish their radio and telephone--making it harder than ever to know what's going on in the world--and wear gold stars on their outerwear, making gentiles colder and less conciliatory towards them.
True love, however, can't be denied, and a romance develops between Irène and Jacque. Josiane (Florence Viala), a neighbor, also expresses interest in André, but this plot line feels underdeveloped since Josiane never reappears after a dinner with the family. Despite the humiliations and inconveniences they experience, life goes on, until it doesn't. Kiberlain ends the film on an intentionally abrupt, unresolved note, suggesting that the good times have come to an end.
Throughout, the first-time director uses a combination of period and contemporary music--like the Tom Waits song "All the World Is Green"--and hairstyles and clothing that could fit almost any era from the 1940s to today. Though this makes the film less specific to its era, it emphasizes the timelessness of the story--these sorts of injustices could happen again, whether to Jewish people or to any ethnoreligious group singled out as different or inferior.
Rebecca Marder, who previously starred in the 2020 directorial debut from Kiberlain's daughter Suzanne Lindon—Spring Blossom—is quite good as the excitable, impulsive Irène. India Hair (The Line, Mandibles), who plays her comparatively reserved friend Viviane, also makes a vivid impression as a compassionate colleague who will do anything to support her friend, while realizing the full extent of Irène's predicament even before she does.
A Radiant Girl marks an assured debut from a first-time director. Sandrine Kiberlain's debut benefits from a convincing cast and a unique approach to the Jewish experience in Vichy France in which one young person's ambitions to pursue the vocation of her dreams and to enjoy her first romance take flight just as the world is closing in on her—possibly forever.
What public library shelves would this title be on?
A Radiant Girl would fit with French-language, Jewish, and Coming of Age film shelves in public libraries.
What type of college professors would find this title valuable?
Professors of 20th-century French and Jewish history would find A Radiant Girl of value. Though Irène may strike some students as a little self-involved--and possibly even naïve--she and her family are sure to be relatable to many. Writer-director Sandrine Kiberlain's emphasis on character and performance prevents the film from feeling like a history lesson.
Why should an academic librarian or professor request Public Performance Rights for this film?
A Radiant Girl would be suitable for courses or film series on Vichy France, like Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows. It would also be suitable for courses on the Holocaust from a young person's perspective, like Agnieszka Holland's Europa Europa.