There is only one thing you can be sure of when you start watching a film by Sébastien Marnier: appearances are always deceiving. With his latest feature film, The origin of evil the French filmmaker takes this approach to its climax, exploiting, both narratively and formally, the spectacular and anxiety-provoking potential of pretense to create a black and satirical comedy that is as bewitching as it is playful.
Laure Calamy, delightful, plays Stéphane, a motherless woman who works in a modest cannery. When her landlady evicts her to recover her apartment, she reconnects with her father, Serge (Jacques Weber), a wealthy entrepreneur, whom she has lost sight of since childhood and who lives reclusively in a luxurious villa on the edge of sea.
If Stéphane quickly takes a liking to the gruff old man, this is far from being the case for the rest of his strange family. Louise (Dominique Blanc), his spendthrift wife, George (Doria Tillier), his daughter, who seeks to take the reins of the family empire, Jeanne (Céleste Brunnquell), his rebellious granddaughter, as well as Agnès (Véronique Ruggia ), a disturbing servant, are all determined to show her the door as soon as she arrives. Convinced that his heirs are plotting to get rid of him, Serge leads Stéphane into a delicate and disturbing dance where the truths seek to reach the light.
The director makes several judicious choices to reveal the aspects of his plot, in particular by exclusively adopting Stéphane’s point of view. He thus only reveals from the outset what seems obvious to the protagonist, offering the spectators surprises as she discovers them and hiding, until it comes to light, the truth about the motivations and the shenanigans of the main interested party.
The nuanced interpretation of the actresses – who nevertheless have to deal with extraordinary and excessive roles – proves to be essential in this respect. Laure Calamy leads the boat in an irreproachable way, leaving here and there clues to the identity and intentions of her character emerge under a fragile and credulous mask. Suzanne Clément, who plays her lover, is also excellent, and she explores trenches in which we are not used to seeing her.
At once film noir, horror comedy and violent farce, The origin of evil embraces genres to better divert them, in a result that is reminiscent of the cinema of Bong Joon-ho. The director also multiplies the references to filmmakers he admires – Brian De Palma, Claude Chabrol and Alfred Hitchcock in mind.
These formal initiatives do not tire, since they brilliantly put themselves at the service of the story. The work of the director on the framing, the shots and the sets, as grandiose as they are suffocating, reinforce the impression of monstrosity, excess, the theatricality which emanates from the characters. The fully assumed side of the farce also allows you to look away from a few commonplaces and inconsistencies – escaping from prison has never seemed so easy – and to embrace this enjoyable and offbeat proposal in all its splendour.