Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes

Writer, actor, director, Francesca Gregorini takes a giant step into the ranks of bold filmmaking that evokes opinion and conversation about her hauntingly beautiful film, Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes. She was one of the eight women directors out of sixteen filmmakers in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

No one truly knows what goes on within buried psychological pain in people seemingly balanced on the outside yet suffering so deeply that mental anguish surfaces in odd and misunderstood behaviors. In this culture, we are taught to keep a stiff upper lip and not to show emotion because that makes us weak and vulnerable. Even close family do not know how to handle these situations resorting to medical opinion, medications, asylums with an attitude of just get over it and move on. It’s not always that simple.

Ms. Gregorini handles this with great care setting up the situation of a teenage girl, Emanuel (Kaya Scodelario) on the verge of womanhood labeled “troubled” because she doesn’t talk about her feelings and is undecided about the uncertainty of her future. The new next door neighbor, Linda (Jessica Biel) moved in alone with an infant. She seems to be everything that Emanuel imagined to be the mother she never knew and offers to babysit the baby, Chloe. Steady as a rock Dad (Alfred Molina) recently remarried and sunny Janice (Frances O’Connor) tries to reach out to her sharp tongued stepdaughter.

Water is a constant connector between the three women characters as is the mother and motherhood theme interweaving the unraveling threads of reality and obsessive desires unrealized. Again, with sensitivity and beautiful photography, the director cracks open the forged stone of Motherhood chipping away at it’s outer shell and opening the many facets of longing and coping with loss from three different perspectives.

Alfred Molina’s character offers comfort and emotional security, a perfect actor choice as the empathy he exudes takes him onto the same level as the women in turmoil who surround him. In a scene of water rebirth, Emanuel uncovers her blossoming mothering instinct and takes on the role that women have been chosen to bear from the beginning.

The undewater sequences were a marvel as was the score throughout the film. It may not be the most understood film, but it is one that remains innate in all women.