Fanny (2013)

The story takes place in Marseille’s Old Port during the interwar years. Eighteen-year-old Fanny, the daughter of Honorine, a fishmonger, let her lover Marius, the son of César, a café owner, leave on a five-year expedition. They had loved each other since childhood, but Marius had dreamed above all of sailing to distant lands. When Fanny learns that she is expecting Marius’s child, she is prepared to raise it alone. However, her family wants to spare her the disgrace and poverty of being an unmarried mother. So they ask her to marry Honoré Panisse, an honorable and prosperous merchant. He has recently been widowed and had already proposed to her, despite their thirty-year age difference. Fanny is distraught but honest. She reveals her secret to Panisse. Childless, he is delighted at the prospect of acknowledging a son who will succeed him. He still wants to marry Fanny, on the condition that she keep the father’s identity secret. As for César, he is first shocked by Panisse, his friend, whom he considers depraved. Then he is furious that he cannot raise his grandson. In the end, he gives his moral approval to ensure security and wealth for the child and his mother. Moreover, Panisse offers to make César the child’s godfather. Nearly two years have passed since the wedding. Panisse showers his wife and their son with affection. But Fanny is still in love with Marius. And her lover has belatedly become aware of his own feelings during his distant voyage. He has decided to return to Europe to win her back. And, realizing that the little boy is his, he also wants to assert his rights over him. Panisse is willing to set his wife free, but refuses to leave the child with his rival: Marius has courage when it comes to sacrifices he asks others to make. In the end, Fanny and César send Marius back to sea in the name of honor and for the child’s future: the father is the one who loves.