‘Scarlet’ Review: A Daydream Believer Makes Her Own Magic in Lovely French Romance
Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticA slight but satisfying choice to open Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival, Pietro Marcello’s “Scarlet” isn’t quite a fairy tale, although it certainly feels like one at times. For example, roughly midway through the movie, a woman who might be a witch meets the film’s fanciful young heroine, Juliette (Juliette Jouan), in the woods and predicts her fortune, explaining that one day this girl — who’s destined for greater things than the provincial Normandy farm where she’s dutifully passed her adolescence — will be whisked away by a ship flying scarlet sails.Set in the years just after the Great War, this charming French-language fable — which hails from the celebrated Italian doc maker whose epic narrative debut, “Martin Eden,” was a critical success on the festival circuit just pre-COVID — is smaller, sweeter and more sensitive than Marcello’s earlier work.