Baden Baden

Strasbourg-born writer/director director Rachel Lang fleshes out two acclaimed short films to make her big screen debut with this fun, freewheeling rites-of-passage story. Salomé Richard reprises her role as 26-year-old Ana, a production assistant who borrows a car from a film set and returns to her Strasbourg home after her grandmother (Claude Gensac) hurts herself in a fall. Her antics may seem a tad inconsequential, as she flirts with friends and strangers and singularly fails to notice the devotion of the DIY store assistant (Lazare Gousseau) who is helping her with the refit of grandma's bathroom. Lang's camera is forever on the move to enliven everyday situations with unexpected moments of slapstick, surrealism and poignancy that highlight the pros and cons of being a young woman with lots of options, but few real choices. Interesting to note is that both Lang and Ana served as officers in the French army, suggesting an autobiographical element.