Painful personal experience is distilled into poignant drama in Eva Ionesco’s promising first feature My Little Princess. Autobiographical events are shaped into a fairytale-like narrative illuminating the abusive nature of Ionesco’s relationship with her mother.
In the 1970s, Ionesco’s mother rocked the Paris art world with photographs of her naked, pre-pubescent daughter. In My Little Princess, Violetta (Anamaria Vartolomei) is ten when wildly unconventional mother Hanna (Isabelle Huppert) takes the fun of dressing up in old clothes to a different level. Soon, Hanna has the career and acclaim she has always desired whilst Violetta is both seduced and appalled by her sudden elevation into an adoring adult world.
Huppert brings a feverish edge to Hanna, suggesting the restlessness of an older woman perhaps only too aware that time and society are not on her side. Vartolomei was only 10 when the film was shot, but brings an astonishing emotional maturity to her character, conveying the conflicting emotions within Violetta and the righteous anger that may have saved her from her mother’s clutches. Ionesco directs the film with a pensive detachment and never judges the characters. She captures a genuine sense of the affection that permeates these troubled, claustrophobic lives. - Allan Hunter, Screen International
