Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Je m’appelle Agneta’ on Netflix, a Sweet Comedy Starring Eva Melander as a Middle-Aged Woman Eating and Loving Her Way Through France

Je m’appelle Agneta (now streaming on Netflix) is the French-language title of a Swedish film, and I’ll make this more confusing by sharing that the English translation is My Name is Agneta. But let’s untangle that knot: the movie’s about a Swedish woman who relocates to France, and I am an English speaker who couldn’t quite tell whether the English subtitles were translations of French or Swedish. The good news is, that doesn’t matter at all, and one shouldn’t get hung up on it. Directed by Johanna Runevad, the film is a pared-down version of the Eat Pray Love formula, a midlife-crisis dramedy in which a woman escapes her drab reality to rediscover herself in an idyllic locale. Eva Melander stars, and she’s no Julia Roberts – but that’s entirely the point. Like I said, this isn’t a glamorous quasi-fairy tale, and it’s all the better for it.

JE M’APPELLE AGNETA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Agneta (Melander) is routinely forced to play a game of Hide the Cheese. No, that’s not a euphemism. It’s a literalism: She loves loves looooooves French cheese. But her husband, Magnus (Bjorn Kjellman) is a health nut, and doesn’t want any rich fatty delicacies in the house. So Agneta stashes her brie and Camambert in hidey-holes and whatnot, then retires to her bedroom to secretly snack with great vigor. Yes, her bedroom. She and Magnus are 50ish emptynesters who sleep in different rooms. All the better for her to have a place to be her hungry, lover-of-all-things-French, wine-drinking self. It’s a metaphor for the way she’s lived her life for decades. She raised the kids and stamped paperwork at the Transport Administration for 25 years, and watched Magnus go running and biking with his attractive female workout partner. All that’s left, she says in voiceover, is to “prepare for my retirement. Or maybe just my death.” Oof? Yes. Oof.

But fate intervenes when Agneta’s laid off and forced from the well-worn groove she’s been not-so-contentedly stuck in for as long as she can remember. All she has now is a vague existential feeling of being unmoored – this isn’t spoken, but anyone facing a career crisis at middle age knows it’s there – and Magnus, who barely even seems to take her for granted. One night after a little more than enough wine, she applies for a job as an au pair for a Swedish boy living in Provence, and before she even shakes the headache the next morning, she lands the gig. So she packs her bags, hops the train and says goodbye to Magnus and his marked lack of comprehension as to why his wife would want to do this. His nuts are numb.

Agneta arrives in Provence to learn that she’ll actually be taking care of an old man. The old bait-and-switch! It’s hard to tell if Einar (Claes Mansson) is in a stage of dementia or is just Movie Eccentric. He lives in an old monastery decorated with sexually suggestive art – or is that sculpture just a dildo? – and wanders around the yard in silk robes shouting about his libido. Oooh boooy. Agneta gets to cleaning up the place and tells Magnus she’ll be outta there soon. But we know that’s naught but a Movie Lie, especially once Agneta realizes how sweet everyone in the village is, including neighbor Bonibelle (Anne-Marie Ponsot), who takes her to market for her beloved soft cheeses, and Fabien (Jeremie Covillault), chef at a nearby restaurant.

Agneta cooks for Einar and he opens up, revealing himself as a sweet, quietly heartbroken man. Ostracized for being gay, he helped establish the monastery as a safe space, and a place of some serious partying and sexy times, for others like him. His sadness derives from a decades-long estrangement from the son he fathered prior to coming out. He accepts Agneta for who she is and encourages her to be her true self, and before you know it, she’s dancing like no one’s watching, literally letting her hair down, eyeing her beautifully doughy middle-aged body in the mirror, spending a little quality time with herself (nudge wink nudge) and splashing in the fountain in the town square while Fabien watches. Oh boy! And sure enough, before you know it, she joins Einar in the yard, to shout about their libidos. Turns out, it was joyous shouting all along.

Photo: Netflix

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Like I said before, this is Eat Pray Love but without a conventionally attractive lead – specifically one who played a literal troll in the kinda unforgettable move Border.

Performance Worth Watching: Speaking of Melander, she’s winning and endearing in a borderline-simplistic, slightly too-familiar broadstroked role.

Sex And Skin: Boobs, a butt, a sex scene that’s more comedic than sexy.

Photo: Netflix

Our Take: Remember, starting over is hard but not impossible, but also not as easy as depicted in this movie. That’s OK, though. Je m’appelle Agneta mirrors the experience of its protagonist by compelling us to accept her and the movie, flaws and all. It sometimes can be a bit much in the melodrama and comedy departments, a little try-hardy perhaps, but it’s otherwise a gentle, sweet and heartwarming bit of sentimentality whose core emotions ring true. In some ways it’s a hangout movie that allows us to spend time with Agneta, Einar and peripheral characters in a quaint and lovely corner of France, but it has just enough plot to head off any potential narrative aimlessness. It’s a well-balanced screenplay in that sense.

Granted, Runevad keys on those core emotions and avoids addressing even basic pragmatic issues (there’s no discussion of Agneta’s compensation, and we’re initially not even sure if she’s leaving Magnus or it’s a trial separation, or what), so the balance if off in terms of the story’s groundedness. But when it comes to matters of the heart, it’s always down to earth and modestly ambitious – Agneta’s little adventure is a fine and tender bit of feelgood escapism that reassures audiences that being yourself is a perfectly lovely thing to be. Unless you’re a serial killer, but we’re speaking to the majority, I guess. Note, Agneta is not a serial killer, nor is anyone in the movie really a villain at all. That’s what makes it a notch or two smarter and wiser than similar fluff.

Our Call: Nice movie! In the non-pejorative sense of niceness, I mean. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.