YES, BUT…

Analyze this! Yes…in outline it sounds a little like a dry discourse on domestic discord. But…don't mislead yourself; YES, BUT… is a sparkling little gem, a clever, felicitous and perceptive drama about the games people play, and the power to heal (whether one is sick or not). Your congenial first-person narrator is Erwann Monneur, a psychiatric counsel who discerns drama of Shakespearean proportions in his cases, and presents one of them, with commentary and annotations. Eglantine LaVille is a 17-year-old girl from an affluent but troubled family in Lyons, where household anger and alienation has already driven an adult son out the door. Her mother drinks too much and sublimates her energy into bridge and manipulating her daughter. Her father is a sullen, henpecked workaholic, worn down by years of squabbling. And there's a newcomer on the stage, S?bastien, a high school Lothario who stands a good chance of being Eglantine's first love. Desperation and precocity drive Eglantine to Erwann's office, where she signs up for a course in therapy (student rates, of course) despite the callous jeers of S?bastien and his pals that she's crazy for seeing a “shrink.” The girl finds Erwann's transactional-analysis advice odd and difficult to apply at times, but they point the way to personal growth and private liberation. (In French with English subtitles)