French director François Ozon has often explored the theme of motherhood in his films (See the Sea, Ricky and Sitcom), but never quite as poignantly as in Hideaway (Le Refuge).
Mousse and Louis are beautiful, rich, young and in love. The lovers hole up in Louis’s family’s chic Paris flat, doing little all day except shooting heroin and having sex. One night, their partying goes beyond reparation and the pair overdose, only to be discovered the next day by Louis’s mother. When Mousse regains consciousness, she learns that Louis is dead and she is pregnant.
Feeling lost and unable to cope with her mother-in-law’s request that she have an abortion, Mousse runs away to a house far from Paris to undergo treatment on the coast of France. Months later, she is joined by Paul, Louis’s gay brother, who sees in Mousse a possible continuation of his brother’s life.
Initially, Mousse displays the characteristically nasty side effects of heroin withdrawal, but soon starts to take pleasure in life with the help of Paul.
Actress Isabelle Carré, pregnant in real life during the shoot, gives a career-making performance as a woman learning to live and love again.
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