I Got Life! (2017)

I Got Life! by Blandine Lenoir is a heart-warming story of female solidarity and ‘you’re never too old’ starring wonderful Agnès Jaoui.

Midlife Remix

by Alexa Dalby

I Got Life!
4.0 out of 5.0 stars

CAUTION: Here be spoilers

Agnès Jaoui is Aurore (the film’s original French title), a sympathetic, real, rounded character that’s not often seen on screen. She’s an ordinary middle-aged woman, divorced, with three grown-up daughters, surviving optimistically from day to day while dealing with hot flushes and menopausal symptoms. The new owner of the restaurant where she’s a waitress disrespectfully forces her out and she needs another job. Aurore is unassuming yet quietly assertive of her identity and her place in society. She’s supportive of her daughters, who are all undergoing their various trials and tribulations in their relationships and she has supportive female friends. And her new job as a cleaner in a residential home brings her into the world of fiercely independent older women and there’s a strong feminist message in the lecture by the real-life Françoise Héritier they watch on the communal television there.

Like the Nina Simone song Aurore and her daughters exuberantly crazy-dance to in their home in flashback, I Got Life! is a joyous celebration of extraordinary ordinariness and the warmth of female solidarity. Aurore’s life isn’t over just because she’s over 50. She’s vibrant and open to romance, either with an old-flame from her schooldays who she meets again by chance or a new man she mesmerises at a dinner party. And in the midst of it all, she becomes a grandmother. Real life happens while you’re making other plans.