The HedgehogMona Achache's charming, understated debut feature is based on French writer Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog.
Josiane Balasko (unforgettable as Gerard Depardieu's down-at-heel lover in Bertrand Blier's 1989 film, Too Beautiful for You) is cast a Renee, the self-effacing concierge of a Parisian apartment building at the exclusive end of town.
Despite Renee's outward circumspection, she enjoys a rich life of the imagination, ensconced in her unpretentious living quarters complete with well-thumbed library.
The arrival of an enigmatic new tenant, Mr Ozu (Togo Igawa) and the constant presence of Paloma (Garance Le Guillermic), a precocious eleven-year-old who lives upstairs, conspire to unsettle the equilibrium of Renee's quietly contented yet perhaps too hermetic existence.
"Utterly captivating because the characters are so well drawn and full of humanity" Alliance Francaise French Film Festival 2010
