La petite sauvage: A dusty, talky time capsule

Is this for you?

Look, if you have a thing for vintage French cinema where the drama is 90% conversation and 10% eyebrow raises, you’ll probably find something to like here. If you need pacing, modern stakes, or characters who don’t feel like they’re reciting lines from a manual on etiquette, you are going to hate this with a passion. It’s a very specific flavor of old, kind of like that one aunt’s attic that smells like mothballs and dried flowers.

The whole thing feels oddly claustrophobic. You spend so much time watching these people pace around parlors that you start to feel like a house cat waiting for a door to open. It doesn't have the grit of Maniac, obviously, but it has this weird, persistent energy that keeps you watching even when nothing is really happening.

The rhythm of it

The dialogue is fast. Like, really fast. It’s like they were all afraid the film stock was going to run out before they finished their sentences. It lacks the natural flow you find in The Dragon Murder Case, where at least people took time to solve a mystery instead of just getting flustered at each other.

There’s a moment near the middle where a character just stands by a window for way too long. Was he waiting for a cue? Did he forget his line? The camera just stays there, uncomfortably long, making the whole scene feel like a painting that accidentally started breathing. I actually laughed out loud at the sheer awkwardness of it.

• The costumes are immaculate, even if the plot feels like a wet paper bag.
• The lighting in the library scene makes everyone look like they have tiny halos, which I'm pretty sure was a mistake.
• I kept wanting someone to just break a dish or something, anything to shatter the polite tension.

It’s not a masterpiece, and it doesn't try to be. It’s just a relic. It reminds me a bit of the way A Daughter of the Law handled its own internal logic—very self-contained, very focused on the rules of its own little world. But here, the world is just a bit too small for the cast to actually move around in.

Some of the supporting performances are surprisingly sharp, though. There’s one guy in the background of the dinner scene—he barely says a word, but he looks like he’s having the worst day of his life. I found myself watching him more than the main characters. It’s these tiny, accidental details that make watching stuff like this worthwhile, I guess. 🍷