This adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s life-spanning novel had already caused a stir before opening night for featuring a 1960s backstreet abortion. Some audience members, mostly men, had fainted. That incident might serve as the ultimate rejoinder to critics of trigger warnings, many high-profile ones in recent times, and again, mostly men.
While it’s raw, it is a responsibly handled scene in an extraordinarily profound and yet playful drama spanning much of the 20th century from the point of view of one Frenchwoman. She is played here by five actors marking various phases of life, who remind us that a single life contains multitudes.
