Théo and the Metamorphosis (2021): uncomfortable for the right reasons (Cinema Review)

Among the many veterans making a comeback at the moment – Kate Bush, the cast of the original Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs from the original Jurassic Park – let’s take a moment to celebrate caves. They’ve been around forever – literally – but they’re hotter than ever now, with Robert Macfarlane writing about them, Jarvis Cocker performing in them and Michelangelo Frammartino filming in them. To this pile, add Damien Odoul’s new film Théo and the Metamorphosis, released by Sovereign in cinemas today. It opens with its title character, played by Theo Kermel, exploring a cave near his isolated rural home. The more we see of his home life, the more we realise the cave isn’t the only hole he’s gotten lost in.

Théo has Downs syndrome, and he lives with his nameless, taciturn father in the woods. He’s been living here since he was born, according to the film’s continual voiceover. Théo doesn’t talk much, and we are left uncertain as to whether this is due to his condition or due to him having no-one to talk to. He is, however, far from pitiable. There aren’t many films about disability with a protagonist as capable as Théo, from the aforementioned cave-diving opening to the remarkable self-sufficiency he displays when, about a third of the way into the picture, his father is removed from the narrative and Théo must get by on his own.

Director Damien Odoul hasn’t made that much of an impact on this side of the Channel since his debut feature Le souffle, released in 2001. The earlier film’s rural setting and alienated protagonist are carried through to Théo and the Metamorphosis, as is its unusual combination of literal and psychological realism. Théo and the Metamorphosis pays as much attention to its protagonist’s dreams as it does his increasingly desperate reality. Sometimes it pays too much attention – the images of castration and incest in Théo’s nightmares suggests Odoul has read more Freud than is advisable for someone whose surname isn’t Cronenberg. But there’s something refreshing about Odoul’s insistence that the imagination of disabled people is as important as their real-life circumstances.

It also means it is usefully unclear whether some of the more naive symbolism is down to Odoul’s naïveté or Théo’s. Both Théo and his father walk around naked a lot, and the presence of a snake running through the grass might be seen as overstating the Edenic metaphor. But this snake turns out to be something other than the devilish presence we expect, and the symbolism is dealt out not with arthouse solemnity but a take-it-or-leave-it directness. By the time Théo has started imagining dream women to teach him martial arts and have sex with him, even the most obvious visual metaphors feel like part of a consistent outsider worldview.

It should be noted that Théo and the Metamorphosis is upfront about disabled sexuality in a way that is still shamefully unusual in cinema. The recent BBC film Then Barbara Met Alan should have attracted attention for being the only piece of media I can remember with a sex scene between two disabled performers, but the topic is apparently so discomforting to people they’d rather not talk about it at all. Not surprising, when you think back to twenty-five years ago and remember that a main plank of the Daily Mail‘s campaign against Cronenberg’s Crash was its film critic Christopher Tookey’s abhorrence of the idea of “sex with cripples”. If this aspect of the film – and the unapologetic symbolism – makes Théo and the Metamorphosis feel very French, the film as a whole does bear comparison to a certain strand of underground British cinema about isolation and nature – think of Ben Rivers’s Two Years at Sea, Tom Geens’s Couple in a Hole, or Andrew Kötting films such as This Our Still Life and Lek and the Dogs.

When you’re comparing a film to Lek and the Dogs, it probably goes without saying that it isn’t going to knock Top Gun: Maverick off its box-office throne, and some people have indeed found Odoul’s film extremely unlikeable. I found it genuinely refreshing – it’s often uncomfortable, but always for the right reasons, and it feels like a very long time since I’ve watched a movie which aims to celebrate its outsider protagonist’s rejection of mainstream society rather than normalise them. Not that normalising is always a bad thing – but in the wrong hands, it can become a conformist stance, taking people and communities with unique perspectives and pressuring them to assimilate. Like its protagonist, Théo and the Metamorphosis strikes out into the wilderness and discovers its own path, and adventurous viewers should welcome the chance to follow it.

Graham on Theo and the Metamorphosis (2021)