Film

Petite Maman

Name: Petite Maman
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Released: 2021
Cast: Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, Margot Abascal

Coming-of-age

A tender French fantasy about an eight-year-old girl who encounters a mysterious child in the woods after her grandmother's death. In just seventy-two minutes, Céline Sciamma crafts something almost unbearably gentle—a film about grief that feels like a lullaby. It's for anyone who's ever needed magic to survive sadness.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like films that trust silence and small gestures, where a child's ordinary afternoons in the woods feel quietly enchanted and grief is handled with a light, unhurried touch.

Skip it if you need plot momentum or a lot happening, since very little drives it forward and its gentle pace can feel thin to anyone wanting dramatic stakes.

What it asks of you: Seventy-two minutes of patience with long, quiet stretches where nothing much is said, and a willingness to let small details accumulate rather than explain themselves.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

A Ghost Story2017

Casey Affleck as a grieving man haunted by the weight of time and loss. It's minimalist and devastating, built on the same quiet architecture of sorrow that Petite Maman inhabits, asking how we carry the people we've lost.

But It's slow, conceptual, and occasionally cryptic. If you need plot momentum or neat answers, this will feel like watching paint dry.

Pan's Labyrinth2006

A young girl navigates a dark fantasy world while processing trauma and loss under fascism. Guillermo del Toro braids magic and mortality with the same delicate precision Sciamma achieves, though with considerably more danger lurking.

But It's far darker and more violent than Petite Maman. The fantasy here threatens rather than comforts, which some find alienating rather than cathartic.

The Night House2021

Rebecca Hall carries a film about a widow searching her dead husband's secrets. It balances magical realism with genuine grief, never letting whimsy erase the real pain. Unsettling and deeply human.

But The tone wavers between thriller and drama in ways that don't always land. Some viewers find it uneven rather than haunting.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Petite Maman

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Cléo from 5 to 71962

Both films trust time itself as their medium—not rushing or explaining but letting duration become the story. Both understand that watching creates intimacy.

Agnès Varda follows a woman for ninety minutes in real time as she waits for test results. No plot, just presence and anxiety and sudden grace. Petite Maman echoes its revolutionary faith that watching someone *be* is enough.

But There is almost no conventional narrative. If you need events and conflict, an hour of a woman walking through Paris will feel like nothing happening at all.

My Life as a Zucchini2016

A stop-motion film about foster children processing loss and building chosen family. It's buoyant and alive despite its subject matter, animated with remarkable warmth and humour.

But Stop-motion animation isn't for everyone, and some find the cuteness at odds with the serious material. It can feel cloying if you're resistant to the form.

The Farewell2019

Lulu Wang explores family, mortality, and cultural difference through a grandmother's hidden terminal diagnosis. Tender, funny, and structurally unconventional—grief expressed through togetherness rather than isolation.

But The pacing is deliberately conversational and slow. If you expect arc-driven drama, the film's meandering approach will frustrate you.

Moonlight2016

Three chapters of a boy becoming a man, each bathed in dreamy colour and tenderness. Like Petite Maman, it trusts the audience to feel rather than explain, building emotional truth through atmosphere.

But Narrative is minimal and action is sparse. The film asks you to sit with feeling rather than follow plot, which reads as inert to some viewers.

Lamb2021

An Icelandic fable of a childless couple and the strange creature they nurture. Eerie and tender simultaneously, with Petite Maman's gift for turning magical realism into emotional truth rather than spectacle.

But It's deliberately strange and frequently unsettling. The ambiguity is the point, which means if you want clarity or conventional narrative, it will baffle and frustrate.

The Eternal Memory2023

A documentary love letter to memory and loss, following an ageing Chilean couple as dementia unravels their shared history. Poetic and devastating—watching how love persists when identity fractures.

But It's a documentary that builds meaning through form rather than explanation. The structure can feel oblique if you prefer conventional narrative or clear throughlines.

Miracle in Cell No. 72019

A South Korean drama about a wrongly imprisoned man and his relationship with his daughter. It's unabashedly sentimental about love transcending impossible circumstances, structured around emotional beats rather than plot logic.

But Sentimentality is the entire engine; if you resist emotional manipulation, it will feel manipulative. The coincidences and contrivances are brazenly there.

The Tale2018

Both films understand that childhood memory is not a fixed thing you retrieve but a story you actively reconstruct. Both hold past and present in the same breath.

A filmmaker reconstructs her childhood and the abuse she couldn't name. Experimental, non-linear, and formally daring, it uses memory not as solid fact but as something alive and unreliable—the same space Petite Maman occupies, except darker.

But It's about grooming and uses fragmented narrative that some find pretentious. The formal experiment can obscure rather than illuminate if you're unprepared for it.