French writer, actor, and director Sophie Fillières tackles the frustrations of middle-age and gendered invisibility in her curious dramedy This Life of Mine. It’s important to note that Sophie Fillières died aged 58 before her film was completed leaving her children Agathe and Adam Bonitzer to finish the work based on notes she wrote in hospital. The circumstances surrounding the film’s production in probability explain some of the rockier narrative conceits which don’t feel fully fleshed out or explored, but on balance Ma vie ma gueule is a poignant character study of a woman who is failing to reconcile her life and her disconnection from who she is and once was.
Baberie Bichette (Agnès Jaoui) is having a mostly ignored nervous breakdown. Barbie (a name she’s unsure she even likes) is 55 and out of sync with her existence. Once a well-regarded novelist and poet and a settled married mother of two, she’s now separated, broke, and working doing slogans for an advertising firm (her current assignment is a breakfast cereal with a hole in it). She looks in the mirror and wills her make-up to go on her face without her having to go through the effort of applying it. Everything in her life takes effort she’s unsure she has the ability to apply. Her teenaged daughter, Rose (Angelina Woreth) is mostly disinterested in her mother, and her 22-year-old son Julien (Edouard Sulpice) is concerned but busy. Barbie sees a psychiatrist whose style of therapy frustrates her. Barbie would like a straight answer regarding what on earth is going on with her and the world, but no one is able to supply it.
Much of what is going on is Barbie’s displacement from a life she felt she understood which in middle-age she finds she most certainly does not. When she tries to connect with people the words come out wrong. Her sense of humour doesn’t click with other people. Other middle-aged women catch her eye with a sense of, “You’re feeling it too” but trying to put into words what it is she’s feeling seems impossible. She wonders how younger people are so certain about life when she’s unable to figure out who she is and where she fits. Her sister (Valérie Donzeli) encourages her to work out a routine and appears mostly blasé when Barbie begins to linguistically unravel in her company. Perhaps Barbie was always a touch eccentric but now she’s barely propping herself up and doing things like spontaneously quitting her job (after writing a poem about a dog on the presentation board) and spending money she doesn’t have.
Things reach crisis point precipitated by an encounter with Bertrand Blanc (Laurent Capelluto) at a café. Bertrand insists they knew each other in Mussidan many years ago and Barbie has no memory of meeting the man. Her mind slips into paranoia and Bertrand ends up taking her to in-patient psychiatric care which Barbie finds as absurd as the rest of her existence. She calls all the nurses “Fanfan” and wants to know if they have children like she does. Meanwhile Rose and Julien are finally galvanised into taking their mother’s condition seriously.
This Life of Mine doesn’t explain what is wrong with Barbie but it does create a character who is relatable with her everyday frustrations. Agnès Jaoui’s wonderful performance filled with humour and pathos makes Barbie someone the audience recognises even if they don’t completely comprehend the finer details. Barbie’s conversations with herself (and her computer arguing over which font to use in her next book) are delightfully witty, and her self-deprecating outlook is tinged with a sense that, although things are bad right now, there is a funny, charming, and extraordinary woman waiting to reclaim herself.
This Life of Mine misses some marks in places – it’s confusingly vague on what should be firm details about Barbie and her wider relationships – but overall, it is a sweet curio enriched by Agnès Jaoui’s depiction of a woman whose journey to locate herself will resonate with many women who were surprised to find themselves looking into the mirror at a face and body no longer young, but certainly not old. A small delight.
This Life of Mine is screening at the Alliance Francais French Film Festival 2025.
Director: Sophie Fillières
Cast: Agnès Jaoui, Angelina Woreth, Édouard Sulpice
Writer: Sophie Fillières
Producer: Julie Salvador
Music: Philippe Katerine
Cinematography: Emmanuelle Collinot
Editor: François Quiqueré