It’s always a little annoying to talk about a biographical drama evoking the fate of an icon. Because the interest in this person often exceeds the success – or not – on the cinematographic level of the film dedicated to him. Despite some murderous reviews (and others much more favorable, it is true), Simone, the trip of the century attracted more than two million viewers to French cinemas in two months. This shows the impact that Simone Veil still has there in the collective unconscious.
Olivier Dahan, to whom we owe in particular a portrait of Edith Piaf in The kid (Life in pink), which won Marion Cotillard the Oscar for best actress in 2008, as well as a much less successful film about Princess Grace of Monaco (with Nicole Kidman), this time offers a non-linear narrative, where the major events in the life of Simone Veil have repercussions on each other. By first recreating his best-known fight, the one that led to the decriminalization of abortion in France in 1975, the filmmaker, who wrote the screenplay for his feature film inspired by the autobiography of heroine (A life), recalls how much the latter had to face the hostility of politicians opposing her bill.
From the horror known in the Auschwitz camp during his youth to his involvement in the fight against AIDS during the 1980s and 1990s, passing through his fight for better conditions of detention in prisons, all the key stages of Simone Veil’s edifying journey are thus evoked. Dahan, however, does not hesitate to force the line sometimes or to emphasize his dramatic effects. A more sober approach on this level would undoubtedly have better honored the personality of this woman, who died in 2017.
We talk a lot – with good reason – about the performance of Elsa Zylberstein in the role of adult Simone Veil, especially since the idea for this film comes from the actress, but it is also worth highlighting the performance of Rebecca Marder, remarkable in the role of this exceptional woman in her youthful years.
Simone, the trip of the century is basically a useful movie.
Biographical drama
Simone, the trip of the century
Olivier Dahan
With Elsa Zylberstein, Rebecca Marder, Elodie Bouchez
2:20 a.m.
Indoors