In 2012, Maureen Kearney’s life changed. Attacked at her home, she was tied up and raped before her attacker engraved the letter “A” on her stomach. Shortly before, this trade unionist at Areva, the French nuclear giant, had become a whistleblower by revealing the existence of a secret contract with China. However, after the attack, the police treated her not as a victim, but as a suspect: her ordeal continued until 2018, when the Court of Appeal cleared her reputation and brought to light the many irregularities of a botched investigation. . Built like a thriller, The trade unionist looks back on the case, starring an electrifying Isabelle Huppert.
Written by Fadette Drouard and Jean-Paul Salomé, who is also directing the film, The trade unionist is based on the investigation book by Caroline Michel-Aguirre, head of the Investigation section at The Obs For the record, the director had already collaborated with Isabelle Huppert on his previous feature film, The muma detective comedy where the star plays a neophyte drug trafficker.
Needless to say, with The trade unionistwe change the register.
When it was released in France, there was a lot of talk Erin Brockovich, by Steven Soderbergh, with Julia Roberts as the improvised champion of a community victimized by an energy distribution company. Now, true story for true story, Silkwoodby Mike Nichols, with Meryl Streep as a whistleblower employee of a plutonium factory, constitutes a more appropriate point of comparison, for its frankly sinister dimension.
Sinuous, like the real developments, the story is rich in revelations and twists. Salomé stages all of this with intelligence, combining, in the image, elegance and a sense of punch in perfect complementarity. Attached to the point of view – to the experience – of this scorned heroine, we become anxious with her as a vice of threats tightens, then we become enraged with her again, as the bad faith of the authorities becomes evident.
Huppert’s magnetism
Speaking of bad faith, it is interesting to note that some male French critics found it relevant to comment on the looksof Isabelle Huppert in the film (which corresponds to that of the real Maureen Kearney, as the actress revealed to us in an interview). This, before putting said appearance in the column of negative points against the film. Knowing that one of the themes of The trade unionist is systemic misogyny, it is to demonstrate an almost poetic blindness.
On the one hand, in fact, we have this powerful multinational, property of the French State, directed by a boys’ club embodied by a hostile CEO (Yvan Attal), and on the other, a police force dominated by an investigator whose idea is already made up (Pierre Deladonchamps). Between the two ? A woman who will be treated as fabricator and crazy: a familiar air?
The part of the film devoted to police custody to which Maureen Kearney was subjected is, in this respect, trying, but revealing.
There, as elsewhere in the film, apart from the know-how of Jean-Paul Salomé, it is the magnetism of an inspired Isabelle Huppert that captivates.
And what about the real Maureen Kearney? She approved of the film while specifying, in a daily interview 20 minutes, having trouble watching it. And yet, she concluded, the reality was much worse.