Benoit Jacquot‘s A Single Girl (1995), from France, focuses on the assuming of necessary responsibility (getting a job) when one is pregnant outside wedlock and the boyfriend is utterly unreliable. This is what young Valerie (Virginie Ledoyen) confronts. Marvelously directed as well as co-written by Jacquot, the movie shows the post-childbirth situation as less unsettled and arduous than it usually is; and is finally quite pleased with itself. I object. The film’s honesty lapses.

However, A Single Girl is a solid accomplishment in many ways. Ledoyen owns her role with sophistication. Other actors are also flawless. The film lacks the vigor and color of the finest French movies, though, everything from Devil in the Flesh to The Dreamlife of Angels. It is circumscribed art, but it is art.

(In French with English subtitles)