Simply Perfect

Good concept, poorly executed.

Fresh and Exciting

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I cam tell one thing: if I had known the story I was going to see I certainly wouldn't have started. I don't really like this kind of extremely sad films, especially when they are are about sick children. But I started watching the movie and, even if I have used a lot of tissues to dry my eyes, I am kind of happy I have. On the one hand, it is a sad story, but, on the other hand, it is a very optimistic one. This rough lady in pink finds solutions where the gentle doctor has failed to. Medicine is beaten, humanity is not. The dialogue between the pizza lady and the sick boy is an example (of course, unrealistic sometimes) of psychologists' talent. Oscar is desperate and alone in his fatal malady, but his new friend fills his life and brings back everybody to him: his parents, the nurses and even his "girlfriend". It is somehow a therapy and a family therapy for Rose, who regains her son and daughter. And, finally, it is a therapy for the doctor himself, who gets his self-confidence back. What a pity it takes the death of a little boy fr his spectacular gains ... All in all, the acting is great, but ... I confess I am a little worried for the young actors who played. How much this "game" will influence there lives?

10-year-old Oscar overhears Prof. Dusseldorf (Max von Sydow) telling his parents that he is dying. He wants to talk to only the dirty-mouth lady in pink, Rose. She was at the hospital selling pizzas in her uniform claiming to be a lady wrestler. Dusseldorf offers to buy her pizzas if she visits him everyday. The opinionated Rose is not comfortable with hospitals or a dying kid but she tells him wrestling tall tales. She convinces him to write letters to God and releases them tied to a balloon. The other kids in the hospital include Popcorn, Einstein, Bacon, China Girl, and his crush Peggy Blue who is blue from her sickness.This is simply a deliberate tear-jerker. There isn't anything wrong with that but this is solely a dying kid movie. First of all, I would change the pizza thing. I have never heard of somebody trying to sell pizzas quite that way. Believability is not necessarily top priority but Rose should be doing something that actually exists. There are some cool ideas but the story lacks tension because the ending is not in doubt. It could be nice to add a wrestling match for the kids or make costumes for them. This movie has a precious premise and delivers the expected jears.

I happened to see Danielle Darrieux play in this on the Paris stage and it was a one-woman show so clearly writer-helmer Schmitt has 'opened it out' as they say. Danielle Darrieux was born in 1917, Michelle Laroque in 1960 so clearly age wasn't an issue and I have no quarrel with Laroque in the role as she is an actress I admire immensely whom I have never seen give a bad performance and she is certainly at ease working with kids as she demonstrated in Malabar Princess. Here she deftly removes the tw out of twee and plays a no-nonsense pizza maker who forms at attachment to a terminally ill boy and instead of sugar-coating his condition she gets him to agree that each of his few remaining days will represent a whole decade so that he will, in theory, live close to a normal span, and persuades him also to write letters to God. As his parents are non-believers and feel unable to discuss his condition with him this has a touch of the Falstaff-as-surrogate-father-to-Prince-Hal about it. I have had mixed feelings about Schmitt since I saw - in another Paris theatre - his translation/adaption of Coward's Private Lives, in which he gave equal weight to all four principal actors whereas Coward had written two leads and two thankless roles as stooges, but Oscar is an enjoyable film.

"Oscar et la dame rose" is the third chapter of Cycle de l'Invisible by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt. I have read four books in the series and I can say that Oscar and the Lady in Pink is by the far the sweetest book among them. Oscar is a boy of ten. He is terminally ill. One day he overhears his parents' talking to his doctor and he realizes that he will die very soon. Oscar (Amir) thinks his parents are two wackos,with no conversation ever since he has been sick. He misses the time when they could say "I love you" without sorrow. So, he refuses to talk to anyone except the lady in pink (Michèle Laroque)who claims to be a former wrestler.The dialog between the former female wrestler and Oscar becomes so tender that Oscar starts to communicate through her. When Oscar realizes that he has about 12 days to live, the lady in Pink tells him to take every day as a decade and she suggests he should write God about it. The thing is Oscar's parents are non-believers and they haven't talked much about religion to Oscar. The ambiance that Schmitt creates through the letters of a boy of ten addressed to God is not filled with legalism. In every book he writes, Schmitt's characters, whether they are Muslim Sufis, or Buddhists or even Christians, they are not characterized by strict, literal adherence to the law or to a particular code of religion or morality. What makes them different is the love they have for humanity. Their God is not exactly one of rules but of love. This question; "Does God exist or not?" is a time-honored question which has been asked over and over again since the dawn of history but what Oscar looks for in a God is not the fact that he exists or not. It is the very fact that there is an entity that he can count on and hope for love and courage.Amir (have never heard of him before)as the terminally ill,tender kid Oscar is sweet,cute and cut out for this job. Michèle Laroque as the lady in pink is indeed great.Superb adaptation,great acting,sweet but not preachy story tinctured with homespun philosophy!