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The Hedgehog (Le Hérisson) | 2011 | NR | - 1.5.2

When a depressed and suicidal but extremely bright 11-year-old (Garance Le Guillermic) becomes wrapped up in the budding relationship between her apartment building's concierge (Josiane Balasko) and an enigmatic new neighbor (Togo Igawa), she finds new meaning in her life. Also with Anne Brochet, Ariane Ascaride and Wladimir Yordanoff. Directed by Mona Achache. In French and Japanese with English subtitles. [1:40]

SEX/NUDITY 1 - A man and a woman hug. An older man kisses a woman's hand.
 A woman is seen with a towel wrapped around her (a little cleavage is seen). We see a woman wearing a full-coverage slip as she pulls on a dress.
 A woman tells another woman that when cleaning a house, a woman would leave her dirty underwear lying around. A woman jokingly says that a man could leave his "dirty briefs" lying around.
 A woman and an older man laugh as noodles flop into the open neckline of her dress (no cleavage is visible).


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VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - A woman, standing in the middle of the street, is hit by a van driving rapidly; we see the woman's body thrown and hit the ground, we hear the woman's internal monologue confirm that she is dead and we later see an ambulance (it is implied that the woman's body is in the ambulance). A woman grabs a girl's shoulder as she is about to cross the street and a car zooms by.
 A girl films herself feeding an antidepressant pill to a fish, and the fish quickly swallows the pill and floats to the top of the bowl; moments later the fish is seen floating in the toilet bowl and being flushed and we later see the fish appear in a woman's toilet, and the woman takes the fish from the toilet and it is healthy.
 On multiple occasions we hear a girl discussing in narrative how she is going to kill herself and we see the girl recording herself saying that she is going to kill herself on her 12th birthday. On multiple occasions an 11-year-old girl narrates how important the location of a person is when they die, rather than how they die. A girl uses the example of people dying while hiking Everest as leading to an important death. A girl films herself in monologue, discussing how many adults have problems concerning death. During an internal monologue, a girl discusses how a young girl will become an alcoholic and depressed after she marries later in life.
 A young woman shouts at her mother and she then shouts at her younger sister. An older woman shouts at a woman. A woman angrily whispers to herself. A girl overhears two women discussing how an elderly man had died, and moments later we see two men carrying a body bag past the girl; she films the body bag being carried away. An older man tells a girl that a woman had died, and the girl cries and tells her mother, who also cries. A woman cries and tells a man that an elderly man had died of a heart attack; she then dramatically explains how a heart can go "pop" at any moment and moments later the man asks how the elderly man had died. An older man tells a woman that his wife had died of cancer; the woman tells the older man that her husband had also died of cancer. A woman tells another woman that going to therapy had "saved her" after the death of her father. As a girl listens, a woman explains to another woman that she was frequently having dreams where her teeth would become black and fall out; she tells the woman that her therapist had explained that the dreams were death dreams. A girl repeats back a conversation she had heard between her mother and another woman concerning her mother having dreams of her teeth falling out and a therapist coining the dreams "death dreams."
 A girl stands on a balcony, appearing as though she is about to jump, and moments later she climbs back inside the room when her mother calls her name. As the girl stands on the outside of the balcony, we hear her inner monologue discussing how people jump off balconies to kill themselves, but she is not interested. A girl acts like she is fainting; she dramatically falls on the stairs and stands up moments later unharmed. A girl pantomimes stabbing herself in the stomach, and she falls over dramatically but then stands up unharmed.
 A woman sits down in a bathroom, and she stands up and then sits back down.

LANGUAGE 2 - 2 mild obscenities, name-calling (less neurotic than her mother, two fat gourds full of luxury cat food, prickly, old bat, fat cow, stupid, depressive, insolent, bizarre, eccentric little girl, short, ugly, overweight, old, rarely amiable, stupid fool, hideous), 2 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - Throughout the movie we hear a girl discuss how she was stealing her mother's antidepressant medication in order to kill herself, a girl does a complicated math equation to determine how many pills would be needed to kill herself and how many pills she had stolen from her mother, we see a girl stealing antidepressant medication from her mother's prescription pill bottles and hiding the pills, a girl crushes up a large amount of pills and pours the powder into a bottle (she never consumes the pills), and on multiple occasions we hear a girl mention how her mother was taking prescription antidepressants and drinking frequently. Men and women are seen drinking wine and champagne with dinner, an older man and a woman drink sake in a restaurant, a man jokingly offers his 11-year-old daughter a glass of wine and then tells her that he was joking, and we hear a narration of a woman describe how she had wished to share another glass of sake with an older man. A man is seen grinding out a cigarette and leaving the butt under a rug, and a woman is seen sweeping cigarette butts from under a rug.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Depression, widowhood, suicide, death, psychoanalysis, antidepressant prescription medication, disappointment, resigning oneself, being content, Anna Karenina.

MESSAGE - When depressed or disappointed, look to others for help.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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