Is The Sixth Child Based On A True Story? In cinemas from Wednesday, this drama about motherhood is the first work of Léopold Legrand. The film won many awards at the Angoulême festival, including the audience award.
What is it about?
Frank, a scrap dealer, and Maryam have five children, a sixth on the way, and serious money problems. Julien and Anna are lawyers and cannot have children. This is the story of an incredible arrangement.
True story or total fiction?
Warning, this article may contain spoilers. We recommend that you read this article after watching the movie.
The Sixth Child is an intense drama with lots of suspense that will definitely make you wonder if it is inspired by a story that really happened. The accuracy of the script, which regularly indicates what the characters are going through, can regularly suggest that this story of selling children may or may not have actually happened.
it is so ? By delving into the genesis of this film and therefore the novel that formed the basis of the screenplay written by Léopold Legrand with Catherine Payles, we learn that it was indeed the news that gave rise to the book. This book is called weeping riversSigned Alain Jaspard.
When this book was published in 2018 by Heloise d’Ormesson, Author Alain Jaspard explained :”This is an idea that came to me one day while reading the newspaper La Provence. There was a story in this newspaper which was about some gypsies who sold one child to another gypsy couple in exchange for BM and 10,000 euros.. It was a very small beginning, but I had my story.”
and add:Then I reworked the story, that is, instead of making a couple of gypsies with two other gypsies, I made a couple of bourgeois. Then I studied history; I became interested in Gypsies. I watched a lot of movies, Emir Kusturica, Jean-Charles Huys (La BM du Seigneur).”
In order to feed his novel Weeping Rivers, Alain Jaspard researched extensively, also attending the tribunal de grande instance. The bourgeois couple, played by Benjamin Laverne and Sarah Giraud, are both lawyers and therefore well aware of the risks associated with the traffic they are trying to set up with the couple Judith Chemla – Damien Bonnard.
Engage the audience and empathize with the characters
The film loosely adapts the novel, while maintaining a very “detective novel” aspect that gives a steady rhythm to the story, especially through the use of ellipses. “My desire was to tell this intimate story in a soulful way. Since the characters act in a hurry, it seemed necessary for the film to have the same topical character with its rhythm and drama. Together with Kathryn Paley, my co-writer, and then Kathryn Schwartz, my editor, we created the film as a “social thriller.” We envisioned a narrative made of ellipses and worked on an off-screen issue. Everything that is not said and what is not shown adds to the tension of the plot, making it possible to engage the audience and empathize with the characters. That’s the whole point of this story.”, explains Léopold Legrand in the film’s press kit.
It should be noted that this adoption story resonates closely with its director, as he points out in the press kit. Léopold Legrand was legally adopted by his father’s new wife after his mother’s death (which happened when he was six years old): “This woman became my second mother. So I grew up with a dual mother figure. I was interested in the story of these two women gathered around the same child. I was deeply moved by the trajectory of Maryam and Anna at the close of the novel “Weeping Rivers”..”
The Sixth Child is in theaters now.
Source: allocine
Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.
