Movie Review: 'Rose'

It’s a wild, rumbustious celebration, with cheerfully loud music, boisterous singing and frenzied dancing. All the guests in the crowded room are dressed to the nines. It’s Rose’s (Françoise Fabian) husband’s birthday party. She has gathered her numerous adult children, their children and her closest friends to celebrate the occasion.

As she is placed on a chair (her husband on another) and is raised above the cheering crowd, one of her daughters asks her physician brother if he has told their father the results of his MRI. Yes he has, he replies, but not mother – he didn’t want to spoil the party.

Avelut (mourning) opens the next scene and suddenly the once cheerful party-goers are now onen and the Chevra Kadisha is called in. It seems that only moments ago Rose, the cheerful wife, is now the mourning widow. Fortunately, her large family and their French-Tunisian-Jewish community is still around to help with arrangements and offer support. The sudden tragedy of this magnitude sends Rose into depression, abandoning her former lifestyle and sinking into loneliness.

After an appropriate period of time and with much encouragement, Rose finally steps out. Her first foray into her new world is to a coffee bar around the corner from her apartment. The barman is friendly as he serves her requested vodka with almonds. She doesn’t touch the drink explaining that it was her husband’s favorite and she hates vodka. Much to her delight, he pours a tad of apricot nectar into it – now it’s her favorite. He has one too. At home again, she remembers they have a car and begins searching for the keys. She hasn’t driven in 40 years.

Finally finding them, she hops into the Mercedes and heads out to see a girlfriend. Seeing the Mercedes outside, she jumps into the car and the two women drive through the streets of Paris singing to cheerful music on the radio. Things are looking up, so much so that Rose pops into a cosmetic store to shop for lipstick. Selecting several bright shades of red, she exits the store and returns home. She needs to get ready for a dinner party with her daughter.

The dinner party is bright and lively and the food good. Half into the dinner another guest arrives, apologizing for being so late. “I’d like a shot of vodka,” she announces. After several of those, and in spite of being noticeably older than Rose, she pulls out her stash of weed. She hands it to a young man next to her, asking him to roll a joint for her. She’s only good a smoking it not rolling it she tells him.

The joint is passed around the table, eventually coming to Rose’s daughter. She reluctantly takes a puff and passes the joint to the person on the other side of her mother. Rose snatches it away from him and takes two puffs.

At home and restless one evening, Rose decides to go out. Sitting alone in the crowded lounge, she asks a group at an adjoining table if she could join them. They welcome her and the partying begins in earnest. The next morning Rose’s youngest son finds her, lying face down in the foyer of her apartment.

Directed by Aurélie Saada (Credits: Quotidien, Vivemént dimanche), “Rose” runs 102 minutes and is a “must see” for a delightful story showing the importance of small pleasures in life and the need for sharing intimacies with friends and making new acquaintances.