✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
France · 2020
1h 44m
Director Jean-Paul Salomé
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Liliane Rovère, Hippolyte Girardot, Iris Bry
Genre Comedy, Crime, Drama
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
Patience, an interpreter for the narcotics department of the Paris Police, suddenly finds herself in possession of a large amount of cannabis. Behind on her bills, she decides to sell it herself -- eluding both her coworkers at the precinct and the drug traffickers who want their product back.
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
The list of charges against this watery café au lait of a crime caper is extensive — wearisome ethnic stereotypes, cop-movie clichés, awkward pacing, a labored plot — but the chief transgression is that it wastes the time and talent of one of the supreme screen actors of our time.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Bilge Ebiri
Cinematically speaking, this is all low-hanging fruit. Maybe such unimaginative choices wouldn’t stand out so much if Huppert were herself not such an inventive and riveting performer. She is, and Mama Weed doesn’t really deserve her.
Mama Weed is intended to wash over you, leaving good vibes in its wake, but it doesn’t challenge Isabelle Huppert or the audience.
While Salomé isn’t anything but a mainstream director, he’s a good one, keeping the movie percolating up to its crowd-pleasing finale and coda.
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
[Ms. Huppert] is fascinating again, but in a wonderfully nimble way that could be considered campy if her style weren’t so assured and her performance weren’t so witty and precise.
The Film Stage by Matt Cipolla
Textually, problems emerge from the myriad supporting characters, virtually all of whom play like narrative props. The script seems uninterested in its conflict; the filmmaking lacks the style to glue its pieces together.
Los Angeles Times by Michael Rechtshaffen
Although Salomé’s lower-key approach to the material occasionally creates the sense that moments of ripe comedy have been left untapped, as well as a low-key ending that might have benefited from a final twist, there’s plenty to appreciate.
As Mama Weed makes deliciously apparent, where its iconic star goes, we will gladly follow.
Its the laugh-out-loud brazen chutzpah of it all and Huppert’s cocksure, casual and lie-on-the-fly amorality in the title role that gives Mama Weed her buzz. Huppert has never been sunnier or funnier.
A young woman who recently lost her mother befriends a lonely French piano teacher whose affection masks a dangerous obsession.
An elderly man refuses to accept assistance from his daughter, even as his grip on reality starts to slip.
A boy coming of age in the 1950s aspires to be a professional film director.