A Common Thread

Pregnant teen Claire (Naymark) leaves her job at a supermarket before her bump begins to show, taking a job with middle-aged Mme Melikan (Ascaride), a professional embroidery seamstress. Claire is something of an embroidery expert too, and so the unlikely pair being to bond - until Mme Melikan attempts suicide. In terms of interesting backdrops to movies, embroidery is right up there with aardvark broiling and warts, but A Common Thread has an unhurried, self-deprecating charm that never leans too heavily on the metaphor of how we are all single threads in the warp and weft of life. An emotionally complex and multi-layered tale, the film is slow to begin and never really accelerates beyond a pedestrian pace. Nevertheless, director Faucher (who also co-wrote) is confident enough in her actors to allow them the time and room to create believable characters who resolutely refuse to pander to a potential audience. None of the characters were written with audience sympathy in mind; surly and uncommunicative, insular and self-absorbed, the characters here converse for the most part in grunts, monosyllables and muttered asides. By the same token, their lack of affectation is endearing; there are no false notes sounded, nor contrivances generated for the sake of a dramatic plot twist. Naymark steals the show with an unabashedly vulnerable turn, her performance surprisingly subtle for an actress so young.