The Braid (film)

The Braid (La Tresse) is a 2023 melodramatic film directed by Laetitia Colombani based on her 2017 novel of the same name.

Filming began on 11 March 2022 in India. It was theatrically released in France on 29 November 2023.

Plot
Young mother Smita lives in India and dreams of giving her little daughter an education, but her husband does not want to change anything. Italian Giulia, after an incident with her father, realizes that the family is left with large debts. A talented lawyer from Canada, Sarah, is about to receive a long-awaited promotion, but a serious diagnosis interferes with her plans. Three women, three secrets. They have never met and do not even know that in fact they are connected by something unique, an interweaving of destinies.

Cast

 * Kim Raver as Sarah
 * Fotinì Peluso as Giulia
 * Mia Maelzer as Smita
 * Sajda Pathan as Lalita
 * Avi Nash as Camal
 * Manuela Ventura as Giulia's mother
 * Mimmo Mancini as Giulia's father

Critical response
In particular, Augustin Pietron-Locatelli, in Télérama, notes an absence of staging and an abuse of clichés, “dripping” music for a film which parallels stories which are not comparable. Andrew Parker (TheGATE.ca) notes: "The Braid raises some cultural and ethical questions that are left dangling in the breeze in favour of sending things out on a somewhat uplifting note after asking a lot of the audience up to that point". In Russia, the film was released theatrically on 30 May 2024. Film critic of Kommersant publication Yulia Shagelman considered the film "Sarah’s line was the most elaborate and reliable, but for some reason it’s not very easy to be touched by how an Indian beggar, without knowing it, helped a woman with money and access to modern free (after all, we’re talking about Canada) healthcare".