Stella (2008)

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A street-smart girl is given a crash course in how the other half lives in this bittersweet comedy from writer and director Sylvie Verheyde. Eleven year old Stella (Leora Barbara) is the daughter of Roselyne (Karole Rocher), a currently single mother who runs a tavern in a working-class neighborhood… More A street-smart girl is given a crash course in how the other half lives in this bittersweet comedy from writer and director Sylvie Verheyde. Eleven year old Stella (Leora Barbara) is the daughter of Roselyne (Karole Rocher), a currently single mother who runs a tavern in a working-class neighborhood in Paris. Stella is used to helping out her mom at work and knows a lot more about football, mixing drinks and what's popular on the jukebox than nearly any girl her age. But none of this proves very helpful to Stella when to her surprise she's transferred to a school in one of the city's mot upscale communities. Stella is a thorough misfit at the school and doesn't do especially well in her classes; eventually she makes friends with Gladys (Melissa Rodrigues), the smartest girl in her class, who introduces Stella to the world of great literature. Stella finds that books teach her some valuable lessons about how to deal with others, but she's not sure how much her new studies will help her in the real world; Stella is also wrestling with a crush on Alain-Bernard (Guillaume Depardieu), a regular at the bar and a good friend of her mother who is a font of information that shouldn't be useful to an average 11-year-old. Stella was an official selection at the 2009 Seattle International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi