| Charlie Says | |
| Director: | Nicole Garcia |
| Producer: | Alain Attal |
| Starring: | Jean-Pierre Bacri |
| Music: | Amélie de Chassey Delphine Mathieu |
| Cinematography: | Stéphane Fontaine |
| Editing: | Emmanuelle Castro |
| Distributor: | Mars Distribution |
| Runtime: | 140 minutes |
| Country: | France |
| Language: | French |
| Budget: | $7.8 million |
| Gross: | $8.8 million[1] |
Charlie Says (fr|'''Selon Charlie'''|link=no) is a 2006 French drama film. It was entered into the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.[2]
At the end of the school day, 11 year-old Charlie is collected by his father Serge, and they go to an isolated house where Serge has an assignation with his mistress. Silently Charlie plays outside with his boomerang. Pierre is a natural sciences teacher in the collège which Charlie attends; he is perturbed by the appearance of Matthieu, an old colleague. Now a famous archeologist, Mattieu is due to give a series of lectures about a pre-historic hunter (named 'Dirk') who suddenly left his tribe. Local mayor Jean-Louis Bertagnat officiates with great ceremony, albeit clumsily. He later finds relief with his mistress, a young municipal worker. Meanwhile, Joss, who is out on parole, is preparing a new job. Matthieu offers Pierre a place on his expedition but Pierre hesitates. When school closes, Charlie guides him to the isolated house where Pierre finds his wife with Serge. During this time Joss has messed up his robbery and is desperately trying to rid himself of a stolen television. The mayor has noticed all this from the place on the beach he uses for his trysts where, in mid break up, he'd come to reflect. Making his escape Joss is knocked out by Charlie's boomerang. Finally his witness gets Joss off the hook. Pierre decides to stay with his wife. Charlie manages to reconcile his parents. Jean-Louis ultimately goes back to his young lover.[3]
The script-writer Frédéric Bélier-Garcia summed up the film as a film about "a contemporary idea of destiny... being none other than that which essentially we wish to avoid, but which catches up with us, overtakes us and finishes face to face - a perilous but vital game between what we are fleeing and what incessantly catches up with us".[4] Télérama, noting Nicole Garcia's preference for 'films choraux' (Hyperlink cinema), where characters criss-cross, whom she views with undeniable tenderness, and through which she underlines the difficulty in communication between individuals, rather than their potential fraternity.[5]