The Rose Maker

The director of this movie, Pierre Pinaud is known for his love of flowers. Horticulture is his passion after the cinema. Pinaud sees flowers and cinemas, both as feeding on the same source: ‘The search for an aesthetic and a staging’.

This subtitled French comedy-drama tells the story of Eve Vernet, a successful rose grower and respected horticultural specialist. She has spent her entire life surrounded by roses. She grows and grafts them, and creates new varieties that have won her multiple awards and admiration as a rose-producer. She wants to honour her father, who ran the rose business when she was a small child. She grew up as his helper, always by his side, and she mourns his death.

Eve’s family business, known widely as the house of ‘Roses Vernet’ is in financial strife. Although Eve is experiencing difficult times, she is resisting her business being taken over by anyone else. Sensing her angst and frustration, her caring secretary-assistant, Vera (Olivia Cote), decides to take action to help her. Without prior discussion, she recruits three farmhands – Samir (Bouyahmed), Nadege (Petiot), and Fred (Omerta), who know nothing about the rose trade, or anything remotely horticultural. Vera puts them to rose-work, which they can’t really do. As helpers, though, humanity shines through, and that affects Eve, her workers and their relationship to each other. The film begins with stunning images of French gardens filled with roses, which sets the stage for introducing Eve, who lives among her vividly coloured roses in an isolated existence – without a partner, close friend, confidant, or children.

One day, Eve receives a call from Lamarzelle (Dedienne), a ruthless competitor, who wants to buy her bankrupt farm for reasons Eve considers improper. She almost succumbs. Eve is conscious of a lifetime spent in growing roses and realises how much she needs to value and protect what she knows she has achieved, and what her father stood for. She disagreed with Vera’s action, but decided to train the farmhands herself, and set herself the task of expertly educating them. Under her tutelage – with help from some unusual habits they have learnt in the past – they become skilled rose growers. They are turned into a group of people who bond together in a new-found awareness of each other, and with fresh goals in life.

The acting in this movie is spirited and delightful. Frot shows wonderful timing in her verbal repartee, and the three farmhands project a beguiling air of French spontaneity and authenticity, as Eve goes about organising their lives. At its core, this is a movie about roses, and the film establishes some great visual moments in Pinaud’s guiding search for ‘an aesthetic and a staging’. The film is a movie for those who enjoy flowers and the beauty that they offer, but it is also a social comedy about a lonely person, who comes to understand the value of helping others, and to being open to the support others can give her.

In pursuit of personal betterment, Pinaud has created a gentle, and highly enjoyable movie. The group around Eve commit themselves to help, and their willingness to offer her their support gives Eve a second chance of life. With her new-found friends, Eve takes the chance she is given, and betters herself, as well as those around her. This is a film that is well acted, and directed.