Jeune Femme (Léonor Sérraille, 2017)

Meet Paula, a 31-year-old Parisienne in a state of manic desperation after being chucked out of her boyfriend's flat with nothing but the clothes on her back and his cat in a box. Mentally unstable, she has no work experience and no friends who trust her, and things look dire until she manages to start rebuilding her life through jobs as a live-in maid and childminder, selling knickers in a shopping centre and forming a few new, more solid friendships.
The first part of Montparnasse Bienvenue, as it's called internationally, is exactly what you might have feared: it's pig-headedly quirky in the belief that being contrary and dissonant always means being refreshing and daring, which is a common affliction in many modish off-centre productions, and particularly widespread in French popular music or American independent cinema. The character is motor-mouthed, self-centred, needy, slovenly and unappreciative of help offered to her. Thankfully that begins to change before it's too late for her redemption and actually turns more mature and upbeat at the same time. It still keeps walking a tightrope between ridiculing and empathising with its heroine, but you do find yourself wanting to see what conclusion is drawn. To an extent, it finally satisfies in the consistently allusory way you might have expected.

6/10