Two Lithuanian children were adopted by a French couple, Jaqueline and Leon, but a need arises in order for them to overcome communication difficulties and facilitate adaptation. Gabriele, a student also from Lithuania, comes to live with this family to help. Between the two maternal figures, a dispute begins over the impact on the children, with Jacqueline as the authority figure, but Gabriele as the friendly presence that wins them over.
If you can’t have children, you may adopt. Nothing could be further from the truth but that is the premise of this film. A French couple is going to adopt two children from Lithuania. Their lack of knowledge of the language and the need to adapt to the new family leads them to hire a Lithuanian nanny. Only this couple full of idiosyncrasies and apparent bad temper does everything wrong and so does the nanny. The film follows in a very sharp way the day-to-day of the reception of children and this always difficult, complicated and time-consuming process of creating a family bond between everyone. And of course, as the family has already unravelled and insecurities contaminate the atmosphere we know that danger lurks on all sides. There is no way to end this story well. It is therefore distressing to watch a film with and without an exit at the same time. It seeks the best from the characters, but in which they always give their worst. And its great virtue is perhaps in the interpretations, from the adult actors to the children. They compose a picture of constant difficulty and the camera punctuates in gestures, in their movements and in the off-setting of the frame. It is not for nothing that we always have a snake sneaking around, like an imminent danger. Only that this danger may not come from the wild nature. (Miguel Valverde)
