The Well-Digger's Daughter

The Well-Digger's Daughter is a 2011 French Romantic Drama film. Daniel Auteuil makes his directorial debut as he stars alongside Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, Kad Merad, Sabine Azéma, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, and Nicolas Duvauchelle. The screenplay by Auteuil is based on the 1940 film The Well-Digger's Daughter written and directed by Marcel Pagnol. Plot Jacques Mazel, a 26 year-old pilot in the French Air Force and the only child of a wealthy shopkeeper, is fishing in a stream near his parents' home. On the bank appears 18 year-old Patricia Amoretti, eldest daughter of a widowed well-digger, who is taking lunch to her father, Pascal, and his employee, Félipe. Jacques carries her across the stream and, after seeing her again at an air display the next day, takes her for a ride on his motorbike. On their way home, they stop in a field to make love. Later that night, Jacques is called to his unit, so, unable to keep a rendezvous with Patricia in the morning, he asks his mother to deliver a letter. She, not approving his choice of company, burns the letter. Patricia, who concludes that Jacques has rejected her because they are from different social classes, discovers that she is pregnant. Confronted by Pascal, the parents of Jacques reject the idea that their son conceived a child out of wedlock and refuse to acknowledge the expected baby. To spare his five other daughters from the social opprobrium of an illegitimate child in the family, Pascal sends Patricia to have her baby with his sister in another village.