I found this movie totally captivating from start to finish and I believed the way each of the characters was portrayed. The emptiness left in Thomas' as a result of his mother's inability to express love for him deeply enough was clear from start to finish. It was not told in a contrived, cut and dry way and was, instead, full of subtleties that seemed true to life which apparently confused some other reviewers. I never found myself confused. I had not heard of the true story and just wanted to see how this young man's unhappiness played itself out. It hinted at the possibility of it developing into a sexual acting out and I never really expected it to go where it went. Bravo to the writers, actors and directors for telling this tale so well. All the actors did a great job and those young children who acted in the movie were especially amazing.

Je suis heureux que ma mère soit vivante – I'm Glad my mother is Alive – CATCH IT (B) Based upon a true story the movie revolves around a young guy who was given for adoption along with his brother by his callous mother. His obsession with his mother from being toddler till adulthood is explored in the movie. Even though she gave him up for adoption in age 5, he never forgets her and always keeps searching for her. And when he finds her its really hard to determine what exactly goes in this troubled young mind. As he still crushes on his mother and treat her as the woman he is love with rather than a Mother. The taboo subject matter explored in very dark way. I don't know whether it was good thing or bad thing as director didn't push the envelope, because if he would have pushed the envelope it would have been ranked as one of the most indigestible movies of all time. Here the director played it safe, and didn't go deep within the young guy or even his mother's mind. The whole movie relies on Vincent Rottiers's creepiness. He truly excels in the movie as creepy, confused, and hot tempered jealous guy. I don't why but I really loved Christine Citti as the adoptive mother, she was soo maternal. Sophie Cattani played the role of the despicable mother to her acting capabilities. I think she could have been great but since there is no as such reason for her being a callous besides being pregnant at 17, she couldn't do anything else. On the whole, Je suis heureux que ma mère soit vivante is a good time pass movie about a subject matter no one wants to talk about Ever!

This is based on a true story, and the screenwriters did not tidy up the tale. It meanders frustratingly. You keep waiting for some development. The story is quite confusing since it involves three similar-looking brothers (and possibly more) two sets of parents, a three sets of actor one for each brother at different ages. To add to the confusion, the story flits back and forth in time without clear time frame cues.The children are endearing and convincing actors, but all the adults are rather unlikeable, rude, selfish people. The main mother is also infuriatingly irresponsible.It plays with the Oedipal urges, complicated by the ambiguous web of who is who's biological parents.

Veteran French director Claude Miller collaborated in both writing and directing with his cameraman son Nathan for the latter's first directorial effort in this adaptation of a true story about a son abandoned by his mother who reconnects with her at age 20 with negative results. The up and coming young actor Vincent Rottiers adds considerably to the believability and complexity of the main role of the disturbed young man. This was a project delayed for thirteen years, originally under consideration by Jacques Audiard. Though the senior Miller's work can be pedestrian and derivative, the directorial involvement of his son breathes life into this impulsive, rather troubling effort. Finally the story however has a somewhat slight and anecdotal quality, though it shows the potential of Rottiers, also seen this year in Xavier Giannoli's exciting con-man story, In the Beginning/À l'origine.The film begins with flashbacks that skip back and forth in time, beginning with the adoptive parents on holiday with Thomas and his younger brother Patrick/François when they are twelve and nine, respectively. Later flashbacks go further back to show scenes of the brothers with their birth mother and the day she signs off on their adoption at a foster care center. Thomas is four at time of adoption, his brother one. At twelve, Thomas Jouvet (Maxime Renard) is obsessed with finding his birth mother and blames his adoptive parents for his not knowing her. He's a handful to deal with, constantly acting out. Eventually he manages to persuade a registry office "fonctionnaire" to reveal his mother's name and coordinates and he goes to find his mother, Julie (Sophie Cattani), but bolts when she opens the door, pregnant, without recognizing him.The adoptive parents, Yves ( Yves Verhoeven) and Annie (Christine Citti) are long-suffering; in fact there's a slight hint that Thomas' aggressive behavior may help push Yves into the depression that eventually leads to his being permanently institutionalized.Annie, however, is strong and sweet, and when the narrative skips forward to eight years later when Thomas (now Vincent Rottiers) is twenty, now working as a garage mechanic and with his own car. He seems on the right track, and is a loving member of his adoptive family, sharing in visits to Yves, affectionate with Annie. François (Olivier Guéritée), now seventeen, probably doesn't even remember Julie and is a champion skirt-chaser. Thomas still keeps to himself, and one day looks up Julie, arriving with flowers and chocolates. She is still in the same flat but now alone with her young child..A strange relationship develops in which Thomas seems to see Julie partly as his long-lost mom, partly as a potential girlfriend; the latter signaled by his addressing her as "vous" rather than "tu." From here for a while Thomas leads a double life, halfway moving in with Julie and her child, and halfway still the son of Annie, going back and forth, lying to Annie about another job and a girlfriend. The game doesn't last for long, and ends in a very unexpected way.This awkwardly titled film is well done in its individual parts, and there's evidence of the senior Miller's skill in dealing with tales of troubled youth, but structurally it doesn't altogether fit together and the flashbacks assume a disproportionate role. It is either too long or too condensed. It might work better in two or three parts of a miniseries. Or the introductions might be somehow greatly compressed and the final segment, where the chemistry between Sophie Cattani, who plays the birth mother, and Vincent Rottiers, as the adult Thomas, the latter alive and yet dark and mysterious, makes for a troubling and suspenseful series of scenes -- which might better have come somewhere earlier rather than past the midway point.Je suis heureux que ma mère sois vivante debuted at Venice and opened in Paris September 30, 2009. Understandably it got good, but not great reviews. It was shown as part of the March 2010 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema co-sponsored by uniFrance and The Film Society of Lincoln Center and shown at the Walter Reade Theater and IFC Center, New York.