Holy Cow: An earthy, beguiling character study

Holy Cow (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Not rated, but equivalent to an R, for nudity, explicit sexuality and occasional violence

Available via: Amazon Prime and other video-on-demand options

By Derrick Bang

Discovering charming little films like this one, and bringing them to viewer attention, is my favorite part of this job.

 

Having yet yet another hindrance to his idealistic goal of making the best possible
Comté cheese, Totone (Clément Faveau) considers his options ... and younger
sister Claire (Luna Garret) has faith that he'll work it out.

French director Louise Courvoisier’s feature film debut is an accomplished coming-of-age saga so raw, naturalistic and intimate at times, that it often feels like we’re eavesdropping on actual people, rather than actors playing roles.

(As a quick sidebar, her film’s original title — Vingt dieux — translates to Twenty Gods, not Holy Cow: a terrible substitution slapped on by the American distributor.)

 

The lush farmland setting of Jura, in the eastern French region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, is captured splendidly by cinematographer Elio Balezeaux; this has much to do with the film’s cinema-verité atmosphere. That said, Courvoisier and Balezeaux don’t exploit these countryside locales for their natural beauty; this is an environment of dirt, mud, sweat, hard work, earthy casual sex and often flinty relationships.

 

We sense that most of these folks don’t bathe very often.

 

Nor does the story — by Courvoisier, Théo Abadie and Marcia Romano — make it easy on us. Their main character is a thoroughly unlikeable waste of space who — unlike the artisan cheeses produced within this region — doesn’t improve with age and additional exposure ... at least, not for a very long time.

 

In fairness, 18-year-old Totone (newcomer Clément Faveau) never had a chance, having been raised by an alcoholic, hands-off father whose wife apparently fled long ago. We meet the deadbeat teenager during a typical late-night binge of booze, cigarettes and casual sex, accompanied by best friends Jean-Yves (Mathis Bernard) and Francis (Dimitry Baudry), who aren’t much better.

 

By day, the badly hungover Totone does nothing to help his father with the family’s struggling Pimorin Cheese Dairy. His sole display of responsibility is taking younger sister Claire (Luna Garret) to school each day, after which he joins Francis while they watch Jean-Yves work on his lovingly modified stock car.

 

This routine abruptly shatters when Totone’s father wrecks his car and dies, having gotten behind the wheel while hopelessly drunk. (We gasp at the stupidity of this, but apparently these folks don’t watch out for their own.) This isn’t a community with options such as social services; Totone has no income, the dairy collapses without his father’s guidance, and now the young man must care for Claire 24/7.