An unstable mother struggling to keep her family together ends up drawing her children into her self-deception as she battles against a merciless social welfare system. The Courageous opens in cinemas in the UK and Ireland on 5th September.
It’s often difficult to get on board with a character who, though well-meaning, spends the entire runtime of a film making poor decisions which impact not just herself, but also her children.
This is the case in The Courageous, a debut feature drama directed by Jasmin Gordon and set in the beautiful Valais region of Switzerland.
The single mother in question is Jule (Ophélia Kolb), a woman struggling to provide for her three young children (Claire – Jasmine Kalisz Saurer, Loïc – Paul Besnier and Sami – Arthur Devaux). Without a job and apparently any source of income, she seems to be managing to put food on the table and keep a car running so that she can drive them to school. Almost convincing herself that what she is doing is noble, she is on a road of deception and lies in her bid to keep her family together and her children provided for.
The social welfare system does not seem to be able to help her, and her attempts to help herself instead only make matters worse. Her desperation is clear to viewers, but those in positions of authority implement the bureaucratic rules quite callously so that a solution to her situation seems impossible. There’s no doubt that she loves her children, but her parenting skills are lacking, and she has no support, nor even any friends.
Set in the beautiful Swiss countryside, the calmness of nature contrasts with Jule’s inner struggle, and the small-town feel emphasises how much of an outsider Jule, and by extension her family, is. She doesn’t conform to the unwritten rules of the society into which she has moved, and tries to make this into a feature rather than a bug of her new life.
Ophélia Kolb is fabulous as the unstable and under stress Jule, but it is difficult to find empathy for a character whose decision-making is so flawed, and which results in her children becoming complicit in her self-deception.
The film tries really hard to have us empathise with Jule, but saves a vital piece of information for the very end, information which would have been helpful to know earlier. The ambiguous ending is to be admired, but the story would have benefitted from a little more attention to detail throughout.
The Courageous is released in UK and Irish cinemas on 5th September 2025.
An unstable mother struggling to keep her family together ends up drawing her children into her self-deception as she battles against a merciless social welfare system. The Courageous opens in cinemas in the UK and Ireland on 5th September.
It’s often difficult to get on board with a character who, though well-meaning, spends the entire runtime of a film making poor decisions which impact not just herself, but also her children.
This is the case in The Courageous, a debut feature drama directed by Jasmin Gordon and set in the beautiful Valais region of Switzerland.
The single mother in question is Jule (Ophélia Kolb), a woman struggling to provide for her three young children (Claire – Jasmine Kalisz Saurer, Loïc – Paul Besnier and Sami – Arthur Devaux). Without a job and apparently any source of income, she seems to be managing to put food on the table and keep a car running so that she can drive them to school. Almost convincing herself that what she is doing is noble, she is on a road of deception and lies in her bid to keep her family together and her children provided for.
The social welfare system does not seem to be able to help her, and her attempts to help herself instead only make matters worse. Her desperation is clear to viewers, but those in positions of authority implement the bureaucratic rules quite callously so that a solution to her situation seems impossible. There’s no doubt that she loves her children, but her parenting skills are lacking, and she has no support, nor even any friends.
Set in the beautiful Swiss countryside, the calmness of nature contrasts with Jule’s inner struggle, and the small-town feel emphasises how much of an outsider Jule, and by extension her family, is. She doesn’t conform to the unwritten rules of the society into which she has moved, and tries to make this into a feature rather than a bug of her new life.
Ophélia Kolb is fabulous as the unstable and under stress Jule, but it is difficult to find empathy for a character whose decision-making is so flawed, and which results in her children becoming complicit in her self-deception.
The film tries really hard to have us empathise with Jule, but saves a vital piece of information for the very end, information which would have been helpful to know earlier. The ambiguous ending is to be admired, but the story would have benefitted from a little more attention to detail throughout.
The Courageous is released in UK and Irish cinemas on 5th September 2025.
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