Belgian-born Virginie Efira is one of the best European actresses working today, and yet her name still registers a blank stare from many self-proclaimed cineastes. She costarred opposite Isabelle Huppert in Paul Verhoeven’s psychological thriller Elle, which picked up both Golden Globe and César Awards in 2017, and additionally left her mark in Justine Triet’s In Bed With Victoria and Sybil, Catherine Corsini’s An Impossible Love, and Albert Dupontel’s Bye Bye Morons, among other titles.

Efira seemed poised for a larger breakthrough when she re-teamed with Verhoeven in the deliciously made-for-controversy Benedetta, but the film — while predictably triggering moral scolds — generally failed to catch fire with arthouse audiences and break out into the larger zeitgeist. That unfortunate fact hasn’t slowed down Efira, though. She’s shown up and shown out with fine work at two consecutive Cannes Film Festivals — last year with Anna Winocour’s Paris Memories, and this year with a pair of films, Delphine Deloget’s Rien à Perdre (awkwardly retitled All to Play For in English), a sympathetic portrait of a single mother fighting to keep her child out of foster care after an accident, and the quite excellent Just the Two of Us, an evocative domestic manipulation and abuse drama which finds Efira starring opposite Melvil Poupaud and essaying a pair of roles as twin sisters.

In between, Efira delivered another totally lovely performance in Other People’s Children, an affecting drama which debuted at the 2022 Venice Film Festival. The movie tells the story of Rachel (Efira), a 40-year-old childless woman happy and secure in her life. She’s generally fulfilled with her work as a middle school teacher, has a supportive network of friends, and decent relationships with her exes. When she gets into a relationship with Ali (Roschdy Zem), though, she’s somewhat surprised — after pushing through a period of adjustment — to find herself developing a close bond with Ali’s four-year-old daughter Leila (Callie Ferreira-Goncalves).

After some initial sex without protection, Ali makes it clear that he doesn’t want another child. As Rachel navigates both the potential awkwardness of a relationship with Leila’s birth mother Alice (Chiara Mastroianni) and complicated feelings summoned forth by her own younger sister’s new pregnancy, she’s forced to grapple with the blunt advice of her doctor (portrayed by legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman) to go ahead and get pregnant if she really wants to have a child.

While an American version of this story might lean heartily into fantasy and/or wish fulfillment, Other People’s Children is pleasantly aimed at intelligent adults who relish an unpacking of life’s thorny contradictions — even if that is an audience, at least Stateside, that seems to be abandoning the theatrical experience. This is a film, in other words, and not an empty, rah-rah, up-with-empowerment feminist fable. As keenly scripted and directed by Rebecca Zlotowski (Belle Épine, Grand Central), it recognizes and traffics in a number of hard truths — including that sometimes chance relationships irrevocably alter what we want out of life and from a partner, and also that sometimes people can know something quite clearly but still act in a manner that undercuts their ultimate desires.

Zlotowski’s framing, naturally, leans into the female gaze. It centers Rachel’s wants and needs, even as they come under micro-assault and shift with the whims of Leila’s behavior and regimented, at times conditional acceptance of Rachel’s role in her life. Through it all, the luminous Efira takes viewers on a compelling journey of a woman in flux. In an excellent outdoor argument after one blow-up from Leila, Rachel, emotional but controlled, tells Ali, “This is banal — I hate you for making me realize I want a kid,” and, “I don’t get what you do from her.” The lesser version of this story would highlight this moment and saturate it in righteous anger. In Zlotowski’s smart, interesting film, the moment’s deepest realizations are directed inward.

Released to Blu-ray by Music Box Films, Other People’s Children comes housed in a clear snap-case, and presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with a French language 5.1 DTS-HD master audio track and (obviously) English subtitles. The transfer is superb, free of any artifacting or edge enhancement. Alongside the movie’s original theatrical trailer, bonus features are anchored by a 20-minute, subtitled interview featurette with Zlotowski, Efira and Zem discussing their collaboration on the movie. Slotting just slightly longer, there is also a HD presentation of a Q&A session with Zlotowski and Efira from the movie’s 2022 Toronto International Film Festival presentation, which trailed its Venice bow by several days.