Home Entertainment: ‘Alice’ Digital Review

Alice marks the first-time feature debut of writer and director Josephine Mackerras, and it’s a bold story to start a career on. The film deals with the breakdown of a marriage, nothing new there, but the manner in which this relationship destructs is like something straight out of a Take a Break story. Alice (Emilie Piponnier) has her life thrown upside-down after her bank cards are declined. Then her husband doesn’t come home. After doing some digging, she uncovers that he has amassed a huge amount of debt (all spent on escorts), and the house she shares with their son is about to be repossessed. Desperate to keep the roof over her head, Alice takes a job as a high-class escort at the firm her husband so readily frequented; her only chance at coming up with the money fast. Once on the job though she finds herself enjoying a side to herself that she wasn’t previously aware of.

Piponnier does a wonderful job with her portrayal of Alice. Her transformation has been well thought through, and feels completely organic. So too does her reaction to her husband’s betrayals. She’s a character that you can relate to, and you want her to succeed in her new venture. As much as Alice changes during her journey, she always maintains the attributes that she had initially. For one, she maintains her decorum and sensible nature, and most of all, her maternal instincts. Even though the world is falling apart around her, her focus remains on her son Jules. This throws up its own issues as escort work doesn’t really keep child-friendly hours. It would be very easy for Alice to get cast as a bad mother, and there are several instances where the only option to make a meeting would be by abandoning her son, but she always chooses the mature option. Despite all that is thrust upon her, she maintains her dignity and that really is down to Piponnier’s hard work.

You can definitely tell that this is a film written and directed by a woman. We’ve seen films that have seen women turn to this method of making money before, but the end result typically feels rather sordid. There’s none of that here though; the encounters between Alice and her clients aren’t the seedy exploits that one might anticipate. In fact, the exchanges are quite mundane and certainly not provocative. This reflects that this is, after all, just a job for Alice. Although she changes over the course of the film, her journey is not tied to a sexual awakening as similar films have done. Rather, Alice changes through her having control over her life choices for what seems like the first time ever. Independence is empowering, and that coupled with the formation of a strong bond with her mentor Lisa (Chloé Boreham), enables her to break free from the shackles of her former life. It’s not an angle we’ve witnessed before and it makes for a compelling premise.

Alice arrives on Digital HD on Friday 24th July 2020.