The shadow of looms large over French director Julien Colonna’s formidable feature debut, ( ), and not only because one of the characters in it is literally called “Godfather.” Set in Corsica in 1995, at a time when the island was wracked by warfare among nationalist groups and crime families, the film focuses on one mafioso clan that’s beset by enemies on all sides and needs to survive by any means necessary. The head of that clan is a very casually dressed Don Corleone named Pierre-Paul (Saveriu Santucci), and he needs to both preserve his leadership and protect his teenage daughter, Lesia (the illuminating Ghjuvanna Benedetti), as they run from cops and mobsters alike.
So yes, it’s a very -like scenario — but it’s as if the Coppola classic were told from the viewpoint of a young Connie, chronicling how a girl on the verge of womanhood not only gets to know the true nature of her dad, but how she may soon wind up following in his footsteps. Directed with razor-sharp, naturalistic precision and set over one sweltering Corsican summer, amid stunning Mediterranean vistas that provide a backdrop to all the bloody vendettas, marks the arrival of a bold new talent who’s able to spin a gripping crime thriller while channeling real emotion on screen. The director, who co-wrote the script with Jeanne Herry ( ), takes his time to get to the crime thriller part, and a gun is only fired well into the film’s second act.
In fact, when we initially meet 15-year-old Lesia.