Madeleine Collins (2023)

Direction: Antoine Barraud
Country: France

Madeleine Collins, the latest feature by French director Antoine Barraud (Portrait of the Artist, 2014), is an ambitious psychological drama that borders on Hitchcockian thriller. It was co-written with Héléna Klotz (Atomic Age, 2012), and stars Virginie Efira (Benedetta, 2021; Revoir Paris, 2022), who couldn’t have been a better choice for the leading role. With great talent, she embodies Judith, a fragile woman - more generous than treacherous - whose double life gradually disintegrates as her multiple identities are unveiled.

The film involves the viewer in a labyrinth of pitfalls and pretenses that misleads before eventually shedding some light on a story that keeps throbbing with twists. They progressively explain the confusion of its earlier parts, which make you search incessantly for logical grounds. The success, however, comes partially from Barraud, who keeps the pace moving and manages to disconcert at regular intervals while directing with a skillful sense of suspense. 

Elevated by a great performance, this tale only seems possible on screen, but the uncanny undertones of humanity and perversity infused by the protagonist keep us centered on her self-created nightmare. With that said, the whole thing feels familiar, moodwise, without ever veering into cliché.

Other People's Children (2023)

Direction: Rebecca Zlotowski
Country: France 

In her most accomplished work to date, Rebecca Zlotowski (Grand Central, 2013; An Easy Girl, 2019) encapsulates more than just a simple romance. Pruning rather than emphasizing, the plot is a realistic evocation of motherhood as experienced by Rachel (Virginie Efira), a caring 40-year-old middle-school teacher who desires a child of her own but ends up deeply attached to the five-year-old daughter (Callie Ferreira-Goncalves) of his new partner (Roschdy Zem). When things go in an unexpected direction, it’s necessary to come to terms with her own feelings. After all, a separation means two losses, not just one. Emotionally damaged and poked with unfairness, Rachel opts to remain in the background because she’s not the confrontational type.

The topic, rarely addressed in cinema, is treated with luminous candor and simplicity by Zlotowski, whose attentive gaze is empowered by Efira’s performance. The Belgian-born actress continues to astound with the depth of her characterizations - recent examples are Benedetta (2021), Waiting for Bojangles (2021), and Revoir Paris (2022). 

Other People’s Children is a tone poem of a film that entangles tenderness and cruelty within a mix of refined classicism and breezy modernity. The emotional waves are never allowed to erode the unflinching truthfulness of the film’s insights. Accordingly, with intelligent nuance molding storytelling, this is a drama that, in the end, reaches our hearts.

Revoir Paris (2022)

Direction: Alice Winocour
Country: France 

In her newest film, writer-director Alice Winocour (Augustine, 2012; Disorder, 2015) offers a modestly engaging account of severe PTSD and a possible path to recovery. Revoir Paris is a fictionalized story about a terrorist attack and the profound marks left on those who survived, undeniably bringing to mind the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan attacks in the French capital.

Three months after experiencing the attack in a Paris bistro, Mia (Virginie Efira) remains in limbo, a stranger to herself and to the city. By returning to the place where all happened and where she was hidden for nearly two hours, this Russian translator makes an effort to remember the details that will allow her to heal and move forward. The taciturn accumulation of emotions finds some illumination in the optimism of Thomas (Benoit Magimel), another survivor who, on that grievous night, was celebrating his birthday. 

Circumspectly shot, this heartbreaking yet timid description of how to overcome trauma is centered on the victims, not the murderers. The images are poignant, the sound is effective, and Efira is striking, but after some truly frightening scenes, the film falls into a kind of torpor that has its reason to exist. Each character is assigned a function that works within the dramatic construction.

By turns moving and horrifying, Revoir Paris might not be a massive hit but manages to carve out an identity.