Abel is sad and feels guilty. Indeed, it was he who was driving during the accident which cost the life of his spouse Maud. Abel is also worried and annoyed. In fact, his mother, Sylvie, has just married Michel, who has just been released from prison. Finally, Abel is in love, but annoyed. It’s because Clémence, the colleague who is not indifferent to her, was Maud’s best friend. And what pleasure we take in following him in his tribulations, this Abel, hero that he is of the eccentric and moving the innocentby and with Louis Garrel.
This is, for the record, Louis Garrel’s fourth achievement after The two friends, The faithful man and the recent The crusade. In the innocent, we find, from the first two films, this taste for the exploration of a feeling of love plagued by many complications. As for the third film, it developed a kind of engaged fantasy whose traces can be discerned here, particularly in the social commentary.
Because in this regard, you should know that Sylvie (Anouk Grinberg) gives theater lessons in prison – hence her meeting with Michel (Roschdy Zem), who is not the first prisoner with whom she falls in love. . From then on, Louis Garrel, alias Abel, can implicitly approach the theme of reintegration without supporting or pontificating.
The theatrical element also allows the filmmaker to deploy a whole system of simulacra and mystifications, the characters lying constantly, to others and to themselves.
Thus Abel suspects Michel of fomenting another blow behind his mother’s back. There follows a series of clumsy spinning which nevertheless proves the young man right. Then, behold, Abel and Clémence (Noémie Merlant, from Portrait of the girl in fire) plunge into the criminal adventure: a detail that we learn from a formidable sequence of meta-narrative tricks showing Abel and Clémence arguing. Except that, we note a posteriori, this quarrel was only feigned, since it is in reality the repetition (the theater!) of a diversion planned for the heist.
Yes, because breakage there will be. Added to this are the mother-son narrative, the social subtext, the romantic comedy: so many seemingly disparate components, but which Louis Garrel merges in a brilliant way. Perhaps, precisely, because his film sets out, among other things, to demonstrate how deceptive these appearances are…
In short, improbable in theory, the mixture turns out to be perfectly harmonious in practice. It must be said that Louis Garrel had the happy idea of collaborating with the writer Tanguy Viel for the screenplay. Author of award-winning detective novels, Viel specializes in stories of families and all-out deception against a backdrop of class struggle. This explains it.
Wonderful Anouk Grinberg
The film, which has a very playful side, also succeeds in multiplying the breaks in tone without sacrificing its unity or its rhythm. For example, a wacky scene between Abel and Michel can be followed by a poignant moment with Sylvie. Within an inspired cast, Anouk Grinberg proves to be especially marvelous in this score. Recently viewed in Deceptionwe still missed her, the star of thank you life.
Ah, this passage to karaoke where his Sylvie sings Another storyby Gérard Blanc… Although, given the nature of the film, she could just as well have intoned In the actby Herbert Leonard.
In phase with this succession of extravagant unfoldings, therefore, Louis Garrel opts for a strong staging in style: chromatic contrasts (especially at the aquarium), inquisitive tracking shots (when Abel follows Michel), indiscreet zooms, split screens, slow retro crossfades…
Processes used as much for satirical purposes as as a tribute to thrillers, to the dark… Content and form dialogue, harmonize… A very, very nice surprise that this film.