Mama Weed: Shopping As The New Female Insurrection Scene Of The Crime On Screen
Huppert's 'arresting' charisma rules in this daring Economic Crisis Cinema gem. Flaunting a subversive female-centric literally undercover fashion statement superhero shopping spree, as the new weapon of choice scene of the crime scenario on screen.
Originally titled The Godmother and adapted from the Hannelore Cayre novel of the same name, Mama Weed excels irreverently as a daring Isabelle Huppert astonishes and delights with a take no prisoners takeover in this feminist comic noir with a raw rebel heart. Huppert as Patience Portefeux is anything but, a financially struggling older woman - a mother, widow and low wage worker as an Arabic wiretapping translator for an undercover narco squad at a Paris precinct. And with her knowledge of the language owing to her origins as the daughter of an Algerian immigrant father who married her French mother - now likewise widowed and confined to a nursing home.
Running out of economic options with dual looming evictions from her apartment, as well as her mother's nursing home that she can't afford, Patience by chance encounters a highly unusual opportunity that materializes for this female breaking bad girl in progress, when she translates for the undercover squad a pending big bust of imported hash - and whose driver is the son of the devoted immigrant attendant caring for her mother at the nursing home. Dabbling in an identity theft fashion statement, literally undercover concoction of traditional Arab female attire, Patience emerges as her own self-styled free lance double agent, marketing the marijuana in question - while simultaneously staging a rebellion against an economic system indifferent to low wage working class distress, to say the least.
An Economic Crisis Cinema gem, along with targeting an oppressive legal system criminalizing drugs, Mama Weed manages a flawless mix of satire and serious political issues. While illuminating at its center Huppert who with 'arresting' charisma, miraculously manages a compelling combo of frail and fierce, both on and off screen. Not to mention a mind over muscle feminist approach to superhero solutions, hatching scene of the crime scenarios with shopping as the preferred weapon of choice in places most female frequented - supermarkets and department stores.
Prairie Miller
