Most Promising Young Actress is an amusing study of a doting father who runs a hair salon in Brittany and flips out when his teenage daughter surreptitiously gets cast in a film in Paris. Yvon Rance (Gerard Jugnot) wants his beautiful 17-year-old daughter Laetitia (appealing Berenice Bejo) to be happy – which to his mind means getting her high school diploma and own hair salon. But after landing the leading role in the latest film by director Stephane (Antoine Dulery), she enlists the help of more supportive adults to break the news to her stubborn dad. Told that Stephane got the Golden Lion in Venice, Yvon replies, Golden Lion, Mad Cow, I don’t care! But when he learns her fee for a few months’ work is twice what he makes in a year, he relents, with wrenching yet comic results. This affectionate and bittersweet comedy, directed by and starring Gerard Jugnot, has a sweet, universal touch. Bejo is adorable as the young woman who loves her dad but needs to branch out from small-town life.

France, 2000.
English subtitles.
Colour.
Dolby digital stereo.
100 min.