Gathering the courage to see the family she once parted ways with twenty years ago, Daphne goes to a town where the people mysteriously seem to know her despite her not giving out her name. However, things will not go as well as she wishes them to. Will Daphne find her way back, or did the twenty years that passed completely bury her chance to seek the parental love she has always longed for? Let’s find out in BLTai’s recap of ‘Now, Daphne’.
Starring veteran actress Myriam Boyer and trans actress from the film ‘Wild Side’, Stephanie Michelini, this French short film directed by Johann G. Louis went on to become an awardee and selection to multiple festivals such as the 2021 Seattle Queer Film Festival and their very own 2019 Cheries-Cheris Paris LGBT Film Festival. A take on self-acceptance and mother-daughter relationships, ‘Now, Daphne’ or ‘Traverser La Nuit’ is one of GagaOOLala’s latest releases.
Warning: Spoiler alert. Read at your own risk.
A woman by the name of Daphne drives to a rural area of France and checks in at the local hotel to stay overnight. The man at the front desk looks at her knowingly and assumes that she lost her way on the road, just like his usual customers have since the start of road construction. Daphne clarifies that she isn’t lost, or at least she thinks so and asks the man if he knows her destination, Galo’s Restaurant. The man stares at her heavily as she proceeds with payment and asks for her identification card, which she hesitantly gives. As the man takes a long look at her identification card with a picture of a young man, Daphne waits anxiously at the side until her key is given to her. As she settles inside her room, she receives a call, albeit a choppy one due to the poor signal in the area. The person on the other end asks how she is doing and if she has already met “her,” which she still hasn’t and has scheduled to do the following day. Daphne expresses that she wishes for things to go well and tells the other person that she loves them before they hang up the call. To kill time, Daphne begins drawing on the sketchbook that she brought along with her until slumber consumes her.
Meanwhile, an older woman by the name of Claudine closes Galo’s Restaurant with one of the waitresses named Sandra after an exhausting day. She lights a stick of cigarettes before going home. The following day, Daphne discovers the receptionist leaning on her car and asks him to move away from it. The man tells Daphne that they know each other and introduces himself as Teddy. Daphne disagrees and insists that they don’t know each other before forcing her way into her car. She then goes to a shoe store and picks up a pair of shoes for herself, although the store assistant couldn’t help but comment that her shoe size is quite larger than the usual female population. The store assistant offers to help Daphne put on the shoes, but she refuses and walks them on herself before she decides to buy them. Daphne heads to Galo’s Restaurant and confidently walks in before taking a seat at one of the corner tables. Meanwhile, Claudine, who is supposed to serve food to the customer sitting beside Daphne, notices her and orders Sandra to take care of it instead. She also instructs her to take the order of the woman at the corner table, Daphne. Sandra makes small talk with Daphne as she takes her order and mentions that they only have a piece of Dauphinois remaining. She does not notice that the customer seems to be staring at Claudine too much, although the latter seems to be avoiding her. While waiting for her food to be served, Daphne begins to draw again on one of the table napkins until Sandra brings her food and begins another round of small talk, prompting Claudine to call her out to go back to the kitchen. Back inside the kitchen, Claudine questions Sandra about getting friendly with the customer and asks if she knows who she is, to which the latter answers that she does not. She then gets out of the kitchen and approaches the table, while Sandra silently follows her and discreetly watches from the side. Daphne calls Claudine “mom,” who immediately shushes her angrily and asks the reason she is there. She pushes away the money that Daphne places on the table, tells her that she is currently working, and asks her not to start their conversation there. Daphne gets up from her seat and sarcastically says that Claudine is ashamed of her before she gets out of the restaurant, and she determinedly waits in her car for the restaurant to close. Upon seeing her mother getting out, Daphne approaches her, and Claudine immediately questions her return. Claudine further adds that it had to take her husband’s death for her child to return after twenty years of radio silence. Daphne confesses that she has always wanted to see them again and wishes that things would not end up that way; however, Claudine questions her only now. Claudine dismisses Daphne and turns her back on her, where she runs into Sandra, who immediately asks her how she is doing and guesses that the woman she talked to is Nicolas, her estranged son. Sandra drives Claudine home, where the latter invites her in and shows her a room full of sketches and drawings. Claudine also pins the drawing on the table napkin that Daphne left in the restaurant.
