Watch Your Language: HOLY COW

 by Rosalie Lewis

Turns out, it ain’t easy being cheesy.

Growing up in rural Illinois, summer brought familiar sights and smells and events. Corn and soybeans got planted. Tractors puttered down the road, requiring cars to slow down and yield to their 15-mile-per-hour max speed. The familiar pungent odors of animal waste-based fertilizer permeated the air when the wind blew off the fields from a certain direction. Neighbors and friends with beef and dairy farms geared up for a series of county and state fairs where they would bring their cows, sheep, goats, pigs, and other livestock to a barn on the fairgrounds.

The fair meant a chance for kids and grownups to show the animals and hopefully win some trophies and ribbons that came with a bit of prize money and positive publicity for their farm. Kids I knew participated in 4-H from an early age, and teens would socialize (sometimes with some illicit alcohol, sometimes just running around looking at antique farm equipment and being goofballs) at night and retreat to the stall to catch a few hours of sleep before it was time to clean and prep their animals for inspection by a judge. During the day, tractor pulls and demolition derby competitions joined screeches from the Zipper and Tilt-a-Whirl, mechanical creaks from the Bumper Cars, and the weary but insistent invitations shouted by carnival barkers inviting passersby to try their luck at obviously rigged games in exchange for prizes like a giant Scooby Doo plushy or a wonky looking Ninja Turtle.

All of this to say, I immediately recognized the opening moments of Holy Cow even though it’s set in the French countryside and not the Midwestern US. A camera brings us into the gentle chaos and raucous atmosphere of a cattle show. People are drinking. Cows are milling around. Teenagers are chanting along with loud music, and our eyes focus on skinny blonde Totone as he feeds on the energy of his friends and strips down to his birthday suit, intoxicated as much by the cheers as the beers. When he wakes up later on the wooden bench of a bus stop, his dad lugs him into the passenger side of the milk truck and they drive through the pastoral countryside as the morning mists burn off with the rising sun. The beauty is punctuated by Dad asking, “Are you going to puke?” and rolling down a window. They seem to know this rhythm of early morning hangovers pretty well. There’s no judgment, just practicality.

In some ways, Totone is your average 18-year-old. He chases girls, parties with his friends, gets into fights, finds his Dad embarrassing at times. His life changes overnight when an accident leads to a lot more adult responsibilities. He now has to care for his seven-year-old sister Claire, find a way to earn money, and figure out how to wake up in time for work after a night of drinking heavily. After a few false starts and a friendly encounter with a local farm girl who seems to have her life figured out, he decides that the answer is obvious: Steal milk from hot farmer girl, convince friends to help, and make cheese good enough to win the coveted Comte award that comes with $30,000 in prize money. What could possibly go wrong?

I doubt that Totone ever read or considered French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, but I think he might agree with some of Sartre’s writings. “Life begins on the other side of despair. I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day. Today it seemed to want to change. And then anything, anything could happen. There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.”

I adored this movie, which may be low stakes and easy-going but it’s still chock full of life and youthful energy. Louise Courvoisier writes and directs what she knows in her debut feature, having grown up in the Jura region where the film takes place. She intentionally cast local unprofessional actors, taking about a year to find the people who would come across as natural and real onscreen. The teens in this movie all worked on farms in the area, and she shot the movie around their schedule. She modified the dialogue to how they spoke. She didn’t want them to telegraph the emotional stakes of the story—it needed to feel organic and unpredictable. She also didn’t want to make an arthouse film that people from her home province would find alienating—it had to be more than just exoticizing the rural experience for a Paris audience.

As a result, we get so many unexpected joys in this movie. The cast absolutely feels like real people, and they have incredible chemistry together. They look like real teens and kids. They have that mix of awkwardness, false bravado, and vulnerability. The budding romance between Totone and Marie-Lise, his farmer girl crush, is tender and funny all at once. The movie isn’t trying to go for this big romantic story arc—it just lets these young adults figure themselves out together. Also, we learn a lot about the cheese making process and it’s fascinating! It definitely made me want to eat as much cheese as possible, which frankly is not a change of pace for me but still.

I also loved the musical moments in this movie—the standout songs being Jimmie Rodgers’ “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” and “Pepas” by Puerto Rican artist Farruko. The seeming incongruousness between the genres and generations of these songs belies the contrast of a traditional way of life in the French farmland and the pull toward something more modern and cosmopolitan that the young people experience. At some point, they’ll have to decide if they want to stay and carry on the family business or if they’ll leave for the big city and pursue a life their parents and grandparents may not understand or approve of. For others, maybe it’s not so much a choice as an inevitability: Getting out requires resources and determination that not everyone can access.

Taste the joy and frustration of youth and artisanal dairy products in this lovely film. Louise Courvoisier has put together all the ingredients you need for a memorable time at the movies.

Holy Cow is rentable on most platforms and streaming for free in the US on Kanopy.