The Rose Maker – a Nick Scott review

It was a family affair when ARTbop Film Reviewer Nick Scott went to see The Rose Maker.   Nick says:

This was in the French film festival and very well spoken of by critics.

The lead character,  played by a well known French actress, Catherine Frot, is a rose breeder who is failing to breed an award winning rose.

The start of the film has Eve the rose breeder as the victim whose well meaning secretary hires some cheap labour.  They’re three ex-cons, doing public service as part of their punishment.  They have no horticultural experience. The rose breeder needs to train these novices as fast as possible making use of one man’s criminal past.  This part of the film sees Eve move from being a victim to becoming a confident, scheming woman on the rise.

The film goes into the past of some ex-cons, and this is quite touching. The script is well written and expands the characters into people you can believe are real. Of course the fish-out of water perspective does make for some good, although not laugh-out-loud comedy You find yourself identifying with certain characters and cheering them on. In your head.

If you are a fan of gardening and know something about roses, this is ideal for you. I saw it with my mother – a keen gardener and usually one to find flaws in a film. This was one she really enjoyed.

Nick Scott Nick Scott has a B.A from The University of Waikato where he studied film under Sam Edwards. Nick has retained a keen interest in cinema. He studied Te Reo Maori at Te Wananga O Aotearoa part-time for 3 years and then from 2014 to 2016 Nick collaborated in writing “The Traveller’s guide to Maori Place Names”.  Nick is a regular Film Reviewer on ARTbop.  Nick has received occasional tickets from the wonderful Rialto Cinema in Downtown Tauranga!

Wikipedia says:   “Catherine Frot ([ka.tʁin fʁo]; born 1 May 1956) is a French actress.^[1] A 10-time César Award nominee, she won the awards for Best Actress for Marguerite (2015) and Best Supporting Actress for Family Resemblances (1996). Her other films include Le Dîner de Cons (1998), La Dilettante (1999), and Haute Cuisine (2012). Frot was born in Paris, France, the daughter of an engineer and a mathematics teacher. Her younger sister, Dominique, is also an actress.^[2] Catherine demonstrated comic talent at an early age, and enrolled in the Versailles conservatory when she was 14, and was still in school. In 1974, she began her education at the Rue Blanche [fr] school, and afterwards took up full-time studies at the conservatory.

In 1975, Frot appeared at the Festival d’Avignon with the Compagnie du Chapeau Rouge (Red Hat Company), which she founded with the help of others. From then on, Catherine put all her energy into theatre performances in roles such as the Présidente de Tourvel in the play Les Liaisons dangereuses in 1987. She performed in a number of classical plays such as La Cerisaie, directed by Peter Brook in 1982, and La Mouette directed by Pierre Pradinas in 1985.

In films, Frot won the César Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 1996, for playing Yolande, the sweet silly wife of a provincial bully, in Cédric Klapisch‘s Un air de famille, and was funny and moving as a wealthy, rebellious nuisance in La Dilettante (1999). In 7 ans de mariage, she played a prudish banker, wife, and mother, who is drawn by her bored, sexually frustrated husband into the world of Parisian clubs échangistes (“wife-swapping clubs”). She is an officer of the Ordre national du Mérite.^[3]

Filmography