Only in March of this year did France expand legal access to abortion for any reason from 12 weeks to 14 weeks of pregnancy. Little Ones, a new film from writer-director Julie Lerat-Gersant now playing at the Locarno Film Festival, opens with 16-year-old Camille (Pili Groyne) recovering from an attempted medical abortion at four months pregnant. The law makes her a criminal. Camille’s mother Clo (Victoire du Bois), who had Camille when she was a teenager herself, helped her with the attempted abortion. A family court judge orders Camille be taken to a home for teen mothers 75 miles from their home in Cherbourg.
Cherbourg is also home to the famous case of Marie Louise-Giraud, who was convicted and guillotined in 1943 for providing 27 abortions. The state and its power loom large in Camille’s life. Even though she rarely respects it, she’s forced to submit to it again and again. Before she could form memories she was taken away from her mother, and here she is at 16.
Although tossed around by the system and by life, Camille and the other teen mothers take shit from no one. Not from cyclists, not from supermarket security guards, not from themselves, and not from Nadine (Romane Bohringer) the embattled social worker who works with them at the home. You have to pick your battles. Nadine suggests to Camille that pregnant rollerblading is a bad idea. Smoking cigarettes is something they’ll never stop though, and the only thing Nadine can ask for sometimes is a light.
Camille befriends Alison (Lucie Charles-Alfred), a young mother who lives with her toddler Diana in the home to keep her out of foster care. Camille is determined to give up her baby for adoption when it’s born, but she might be swayed by the care she feels for the asthmatic Diana. Nadine advises her to hide that she plans to put up her baby for adoption from the other mothers.
Camille visits a doctor for sonograms, refusing to learn the sex of the fetus. Near the end of her pregnancy she pulls her shirt down over her large belly. She’s wearing a Lebron James #23 Cleveland Cavaliers jersey. Lebron was born to Gloria James when she was just sixteen like Camille. Now he’s got a billion dollars and is arguably the greatest basketball player of all time. Plus he starred in Space Jam: A New Legacy, another film about the difficult relationship between parent and child. Camille doesn’t wish for her own Lebron. She just requests her child be placed with a rich, loving family. Nadine reminds her that’s not how things work.
The film highlights the impossibility of being a responsible adult but also the fierce need to take care of each other. Despite the wisdom that comes with age, Nadine, Camille’s mom and Camille’s mom’s boyfriends all struggle to varying degrees with making the right choices. There are no ideal solutions, especially the government’s system of foster care.
Mehdi (Bilel Chegrani), the teen boy who impregnated Camille, believes himself ready to take care of her and the child. Chegrani plays his part with the perfect amount of boyishness, fantasizing about fatherhood the same way a kid imagines hitting the game winning basket or winning a gold medal in BMX. Groyne plays both sides of Camille perfectly too, the child forced into being an adult, whose tough exterior melts the second she’s with her mom.
As the decision whether to give up her child looms, Camille learns details about her own mother’s choice from Nadine the social worker. She probes her mother Clo to find out a little more, but this all gets consumed by the drama of Clo’s life. She begins to write a letter to the future child. The letter doesn’t have to be sent, it can be just for Camille to keep. Surrounded by young mothers and their young babies, the pressure increases to change her mind and keep it.
Straightforward in its style, the film works to a very emotional conclusion. It pulls you in and makes you feel like you’ve been on every step of the way with Camille.