This gentle film about a romance between two young people with developmental disorders has been playing the festival circuit to good notices.
The title character is played with lovely directness and ease by first-time actor Gabrielle Marion-Rivard, who has the developmental disorder Williams syndrome in real life. And Martin, the young man she falls in love with, is played by Canadian actor Alexandre Landry. They sing together in a choir for disabled adults. Martin has a mother (Marie Gignac) who doesn’t want him to have sex, and Gabrielle has a sister (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) she’s afraid to live without.
Director Louise Archambault has a fondness for Canadian pop music with crashingly obvious lyrics (including a song called “Ordinary”), and the film drags when some scenes run long. Its sentiment is appealing, though, and its sincerity doesn’t cloy.