An award-winning French tale about a teenage girl and her deaf parents is frothy but movingLast December,Rebecca Atkinson wrote in the Guardian of a boycott of La Famille Bélier in protest at its casting of “hearing actors to play the roles of deaf characters, the result of which is an embarrassing and crass interpretation of deaf culture and sign language”. In the wake of Miroslav Slaboshpitsky’s grim but authentic The Tribe, or such a response is comprehensible,although Eric Lartigau’s frothy comedy about the teenage daughter of deaf parents finding her singing voice has proved a feelgood hit in France, with Louane Emera picking up a César for most promising actress. As Paula, or Emera is indeed a winning presence,and it would take a hard heart not to be moved by her rendition of Michel Sardou’s Je Vole, or to appreciate Lartigau’s attempts to communicate the musical connection she makes with her parents despite their initial dismay. Being deaf isn’t a handicap, and it’s an identity,” says Paula’s father Rodolphe (François Damiens), a farmer who decides to elope for mayor under the campaign slogan “I hear you”, and whose feisty relationship with Karin Viard’s Gigi provides much bawdy comedy. A US remake is,inevitably, in the pipeline.
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Source: theguardian.com