‘Holy Cow’: Cannes Review

Dir: Louise Courvoisier. France. 2024. 91mins

The countryside is nice enough, but it can be a tough place in which to grow up. Take, for example, 18-year-old Totone (Clement Faveau), a mop-haired lad from the rural Jura region in south-east France. All he really wants to do is have fun with his mates, get drunk and get laid, but then his father dies and he is left with a failing farm and a little sister to look after. The debut feature of Louise Courvoisier, who also grew up on a farm in the Jura, Holy Cow is a small but likeable coming-of-age tale that reeks of dung, grilled sausages, sweat and diesel oil.

Courvoisier has a clear talent for casting and directing non-professional actors

Lovingly shot in warm natural light, and accompanied by a gentle, lilting soundtrack, Holy Cow is shot through with compassion for its rascally yet vulnerable protagonist. Country folk tend to be reticent about their feelings, and Courvoisier’s debut respects this, finding emotion in small details rather than big set pieces. It should charm audiences at home in France after its premiere in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, and has the potential to break out into arthouse slots elsewhere.

Holy Cow is themed around an agricultural competition – in this case, the cash prizes that are awarded each year to the best round of Comte, a cheese made in this western part of the French Alps. But Totone’s quest to win the prize is something of a decoy, part of a learning curve that will see him step up and take control of his life.

Courvoisier has a clear talent for casting and directing non-professional actors. As Totone, Clement Faveau is a natural, his bravado when he’s with his two besties giving way to a stymied awkwardness when his dad’s getting drunk or an adult is telling him what to do. In the adrenalin-fuelled opening sequences, Totone does an impromptu strip at an agricultural fair, scores a hot date but fails to perform, and engages in a bit of a rumble with some guys from the next village.

Later, careering off on their motorbikes, Totone and his two friends come across his father’s car smashed against a tree. Putting dad in a car to drive himself home when blind drunk is just one of the mistakes this lively but sensitive teen will make along the way. Another is the big lie that hovers uneasily behind his burgeoning romantic relationship with self-possessed young farmer Marie-Lise (another authentic performance from Maiwenn Barthelemy).

Here, life is like stock car racing – a sport that revs away in the background. You actually score points for taking tumbles, as long as the beaten-up vehicle can start again each time. Metaphors like these are as subtly floated as the red, orange and green tops worn at various points by Totone and his sister: are they traffic lights in a story that is about big setbacks and small steps forward? Or simply a country-kid act of defiance against the brown earth and grey stone that surrounds him?