L ifestyle /C ulture
‘If You See My Mother’ Brings Mother’s Day Laughs
FI L M
SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
IT’S ALMOST MOTHER’S
Day, but depending on your
family’s vaccination status,
you may not feel comfortable
taking the moms in your life
out for brunch just yet. A movie
screening at home might be just
what the doctor ordered.

Enter “If You See My
Mother,” director Nathanaël
Guedj’s French comedy about
a man and the most important
woman in his life. The film will
screen virtually at the Gershman
Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival
from May 3-10.

The story revolves around
the relationship between Max,
a bespectacled Jewish ophthal-
mologist played by Félix Moati,
and his mother Monique, a
restaurant owner portrayed by
Noémie Lvovsky. Monique, like
many Jewish mothers, shows her
love through cooking copious
amounts of delicious food for
her children. When she dies
suddenly, Max discovers that he
can see, hear and touch her at
the funeral as if she is still alive.

Initially, he is thrilled, and
the two continue to spend time
together as mother and son
even as the people in Max’s life
become increasingly disturbed
by his reclusiveness, lack of
visible mourning and new
habit of talking to himself as he
converses with the apparition.

This denial-induced bliss
hits a snag when Max becomes
romantically involved with
Ohiana, a psychotherapist played
by the delightful Sara Giraudeau,
who shares his offices. Monique
appears in his apartment when
the couple starts having sex, and
she refuses to leave even as he
demands she respect his privacy
(Ohiana witnesses this exchange
as Max furiously gesticulating at
thin air.)
Although his loved ones try
to be patient with his bizarre
plight, their frustration with
22 MAY 6, 2021
Max (Félix Moati) and Monique (Noémie Lvovsky) stand at Monique’s funeral in “If You See My Mother.”
The film is meant to be a modern take on Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex,” the
story of the king who kills his father and sleeps with his mother because
he cannot see the true nature of his actions.

Max’s inability to see his self-de-
structive behavior for what it is
puts his relationships on tenter-
hooks. It soon becomes clear
that Max must choose between
being present for the living and
living in a fantasy with the dead.

The film is meant to be a
modern take on Sophocles’
“Oedipus Rex,” the story of the
king who kills his father and
sleeps with his mother because
he cannot see the true nature of
his actions. While “Mother” is a
comedy rather than a tragedy,
allusions to the power of sight
and blindness abound in Max’s
profession as an eye doctor,
his reliance on glasses and his
inability to see the consequences
of his actions. One of his friends,
a fellow mama’s boy, is actually
nicknamed Oedipus.

The Greek tale combines with
distinctively Jewish ideas about
death and mourning, although
religion appears to be an after-
thought at first. The funeral makes
it clear that none of the bereaved
children truly connect with their
religion, and there are no plans to
sit shiva for the deceased.

A desperate Max seeks out
the bumbling rabbi when he
realizes he can see his mother
standing next to him, and the
learned man’s advice is largely
useless. This is underscored
by Monique’s outright disdain
for the rabbi and the fact that
their discussion takes place in a
bathroom next to the toilet.

However, the story raises
important questions about
grief’s potential to overwhelm
mourners in the absence of
the structure and communal
bonding provided by the shiva
JEWISH EXPONENT
Courtesy of Playtime
and physical comedy, including
the scenes when she snuggles
next to Max and Ohianna while
they sleep, are a joy to watch.

There is one instance where
her performance is undermined
by poor scripting and directing
decisions: an offensive and
unnecessary scene where she is
dressed up as a geisha. To reveal
the reason behind the costume
would spoil the plot, but the
scene could have been completely
removed from the film without
compromising storytelling.

Still, her sense of humor and
versatility elevates her character’s
overbearing Jewish motherli-
ness beyond stereotype. Lvovsky
takes one of Max’s lowest points
and makes it her highest when
she performs in drag as her son
to illustrate the lack of bound-
aries between them.

Tickets for “If You See
My Mother” are available to
residents of Pennsylvania, New
Jersey and Delaware at pjff.org. l
process. As Ohiana, Oedipus
and Max’s sisters observe Max’s
increasingly deranged behavior,
they realize that he is stuck in
the first stage of grief — denial
— and incapable of processing
his feelings in a healthy way.

Ohiana tries to use her abili-
ties as a therapist to provide
some semblance of structure
for Max’s grief by sternly asking
the apparition of his mother to
leave before they have sex and
later ordering him to throw away
the frozen meals she prepared
for him before she died. These
attempts ultimately fail, since
Max is the only one who can
save himself.

Although Moati’s Max is
technically the main character
in the story, Lvovsky is the
true star of the film. Her facial spanzer@jewishexponent.com;
expressions, comedic timing 215-832-0729
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