Although he does not possess the virtuosity of Alfred Hitchcock or Brian De Palma, Antoine Barraud (The red back, The chasms) executes an attractive sequence shot as a prologue in Madeleine Collins. In the middle of a chic clothing store where employees twirl around a rich clientele, a young woman seems visibly uncomfortable in this place of opulence. The camera follows her gently, showing her indecision, but above all her fragility, to the point of agitating the staff of the place in all directions, a pretty muffled ballet ending in a lightning manner.
This tragic figure, who seems in no way linked to what will follow, remains a ghost, Antoine Barraud managing to retain the shock wave of this event for a good part of the story, accentuating the effect of suspense . Because everything becomes smooth and touching when Judith (Virginie Efira, still ready for anything after her time with Paul Verhoeven in She and in Benedetta), caring mother of a pretty little girl and spouse of Abdel (Quim Gutiérrez), visibly in love, but struggling to hide his embarrassment at seeing her often leave for several consecutive days for her work.
However, she does not only walk between Switzerland and France as a translator, but will join her other spouse, obviously the oldest, Melvil (Bruno Salomone), a conductor with an ascending career with whom she raises two teenagers in full growth – we know it by their scowl. Its multiple round trips look like a real balancing act; the important thing is not to get entangled in his lies, his schedules, his business trips, evoking Spain or Poland without ever setting foot there. But bringing back gifts oozing the tourist clichés of the places to fool everyone.
Amazing detours
By the landscapes and its depiction of social classes, just about every character swimming in obvious comfort, Madeleine Collins recalls the moral dilemmas that went through The adversary, by Emmanuel Carrère, adapted for the screen by Nicole Garcia. The fantasies, or rather the salads, that these pathological liars tell those around them are sometimes pure delirium, but many believe them without asking too many questions, as if the truth would make everything collapse.
However, little by little, cracks are digging on the armor that these mythomaniacs had patiently made. The one who also calls herself Margot can’t control everything: a friend from the past popping up by chance; her parents arriving without warning and shaking up their daughter’s timed routine. All of this gradually makes him lose his footing, the time to discover that a false identity card is about to expire or that impromptu phone calls begin to worry his relatives, especially his eldest son.
What was announced as a (not very) simple story of adultery takes astonishing detours, going far beyond the prospect of seeing this sophisticated heroine entangled in her mythomania to the point of suffocation. From a marital drama, Antoine Barraud multiplies the asides to cover the tracks, intersecting the destinies of these characters whose real depth of ties is unknown. An almost interrupted succession of seemingly innocuous incidents reveals even more troubled aspects of this woman with multiple identities, with elastic morality, ready to do anything to conquer the ultimate object of her desire. Who is not necessarily who we believe.
Is all this more of an exercise in style than psychoanalytic diving? Antoine Barraud seeks to seduce us, to dumbfound us, even if it means mixing up the cards and not bothering with flat reality. In this, he follows the lesson of his masters.