If we’re honest, most of us fall into ruts without even realising it’s happened.
Life kicks off into adult gear, and dares us to keep up or fall behind, and so we find ourselves on a weird existential hamster wheel of sorts, one made up of jobs and bills and social catch-ups and concerts and family commitments and well, lots of things, all of which feel like a lot of energy and activity, and which do have real and lasting value, but which still amount to a rut.
Not all ruts are bad, and in fact, many are so soul comfortingly good, but knowing whether you’re in a good or bad rut doesn’t really become apparent until an unexpected moment in your life shakes all the pieces free and you discover just what it is your life is really made of.
Maria Rodrigues (Karin Viard), the titular character who isn’t so much into life as just going through the motions, finds this out firsthand in Maria rêve (Maria into Life) when she takes up a new job at Beaux-Arts de Paris, an art school where her only job is to clean up after the students and to keep any exhibitions spick and span (and hopefully to avoid tossing out actual artwork in the process; spoiler art: it happens on her first day …oops!).
She’s in a perfectly nice marriage of 20-plus-years to Oratio (Philippe Uchan), happy enough making small talk over dinner, but a little frustrated that her husband isn’t making any real moves to get another job.
He says he will but lethargy seems to have him in its enervating grip, and so while she works hard to bring in the household income, he stays at home dreaming big but doing little.
He’s not a horrible man by any measure but he’s not that exciting; still, he’s who Maria married and she quietly accepts that her job is just to clean and go home and try to make the best of it.
Then something remarkably unexpected happens.
Maria befriends the school’s janitor Hubert (Grégory Gadebois) and a student Naomie Hosseinzadeh (Noée Abita), two disparate souls whom she befriends and who in their own ways begin to waken Maria up to the idea that perhaps life can be more exciting, more alive and far more satisfying than she’s even realised.
In that respect at least, you’ve seen a film like Maria rêve (Maria into Life) lots of times before.
The reinvention genre is big in films, TV and books, a nod to the fact that all of us wonder what it might be like if the rut was removed for a while, even the good ones, and we could see where else life might lead us.
We may not be game enough to take those steps ourselves so films like Maria rêve (Maria into Life) give us a chance to see what could happen if we slowly let vitality and newness in and let it have its unpredictably reshaping way with us.
Maria is, of course, beautifully loyal to Oratio.
Even though it’s clear that she and Hubert have a spark and that he might be the doorway to a whole new way of living for her, she steadfastly refuses to give into her feelings; that is until her involvement in a number of after-hours artistic endeavours opens her eyes and soul up to the fact that maybe she’s missing out on a lot more than she realised.
There is, naturally, a big epiphanic moment in Maria rêve (Maria into Life) which isn’t a surprise or a spoiler since every rom-com has them, but the way it arrives is by degrees, one small peek into the new, one lingering gaze on the possible at a time, makes it all very real and grounded.
The fairytale is realised but not in any kind of melodramatically artificial way.
It happens much as it might in real life where the rut is ever so slightly and slowly revealed for what it truly is – in this case not a good rut; not a bad one either but you know, still a rut – and the hopefulness of what wasn’t consciously wished for but very much needed makes its eventually welcome presence felt.
The beauty of Viard’s performance is that it is beautifully and affectingly nuanced, her face at first reflecting grim resignation or weary acceptance before sparks of joy flit across it and you can see her opening up to the possibility presented by her art-by-association activities and by the presence of Hubert who, like her, is ready for something good to happen.
Hubert does try to make his life HAPPEN but rebuffed by a timid Maria, he eventually accepts he may have to do it on his own terms, acting on a long simmering plan that his on-off hopefulness with Maria finally spurs into action.
Quietly assuming and emotionally rich in quietly powerful, and unexpectedly often funny ways – Maria rêve (Maria into Life) has a great deal of fun poking affectionate fun at art’s pretentiousness and the honesty of the people who practise it when they’re finally given the chance to leave buzzwords behind and speak the truth – the film is one of those coming-to-life stories that feels like the real deal.
You may not need to do what Maria does and upend her world once she’s realises the one she holds in her hands is no longer fit for purpose, but you might need to change something here and something there, big or small, and the joy of Maria rêve (Maria into Life) is that lights a fire under you to do just that, reminding you that taking chances and sucking the marrow from life is a wonderful thing and may just lead you somewhere amazingly good when you least suspect it.