84 year-old Jewish grandmother Mamie Régine (Reine Ferrato) is growing old in her cluttered Paris apartment. Every two weeks her 24-year-old grandson Guillaume (Guillaume Quatravaux) travels from his seaside home to visit her. But he is sullen, argumentative, insulting, and sometimes extremely distant. Régine puts up with it, and simply offers him more to eat. His mother died two years ago of breast cancer at the age of 47, and he keeps coming back to Régine’s because he has nowhere else to go. She is, and has always been, his only family. Guillaume's mother's ashes are kept in an urn on Grandma’s balcony. Régine is a worldly woman, not at all sentimental. As Guillaume quietly weeps over the dinner table, she says, “Stop that, don’t do that.” When she hires handsome young housekeeper Maxime (Jean-Philippe Sêt) to help her with cleaning, Guillaume becomes suspicious and then jealous of him. He and Régine begin to bond, Maxime points out Guillaume’s mean behavior to Régine, but she is forgiving, saying it’s to be expected considering what he’s been through. Maxime and Guillaume slowly build a friendship, and they are both probably gay. Guillaume starts to relax, even as he plans to scatter his mother's ashes in Scotland to honor her final wish. The ending is upbeat and offers hope that the characters will have a better relationship.
"Les Petit Fils" is a charming and heartwarming tragi-comedy about family dynamics and the inter-action of a grandmother, her gay grandson, his lover, and a new gay housekeeper. It's a character-driven movie, shot on video. Bertrand Bonello composed the music, and Ilan Duran Cohen wrote the screenplay and directed. In French with English subtitles, the English title is "Grand Sons".
