previously published on Cineuropa
In the filmmaking oeuvre of actress-turned-screenwriter-and-helmer Anne Le Ny, the topics of relationship dynamics are dominant, no matter which context they are explored in – a couple, a marriage, a pair of friends, a family... Although she has usually stuck to the widely expected genres of comedy or drama to tell her stories, as of her previous directorial work, Spiral (2022), she has started toying with a different genre approach along the lines of a thriller. Her newest effort, Out of Control, which also has some elements of a thriller, has just premiered in the main competition of Tallinn Black Nights.
For 15 years, Julien (Omar Sy) and Marie (Élodie Bouchez) have enjoyed marital bliss and a family idyll with their two daughters. However, the return of one person, Anaëlle (Vanessa Paradis), threatens to destroy it all. Anaëlle had been Julien’s girlfriend during the long years of their youth until she dumped him unexpectedly and without explanation a decade and a half ago. In the meantime, she moved to the island of Reunion, got married and divorced, and finally came back to their hometown with the idea of opening a bar there. Marie, who “nursed” the wounded and depressed Julien back to sanity, fears that he will be drawn back to Anaëlle.
At the same time, Marie’s company is hit by a crisis that brings an auditor from Paris to find out what is going on and weigh up restructuring. At first, the auditor, Thomas (José Garcia), seems like a nice, sensitive and sensible man, so Marie, already persuaded that Julien is cheating on her, starts an affair with him, which also comes with the added benefit of moving up through the ranks of the corporate hierarchy. But soon enough, it turns out that Thomas is as manipulative and therefore as dangerous as he is obsessed with her...
The stage is set for a domestic thriller, and Le Ny’s storytelling approach is well measured and exudes patience at first. Her style is slick, yet slightly unremarkable and sterile, paired with some decent camerawork by Laurent Dailland and Virginie Bruant’s unobtrusive editing, with only Benjamin Esdraffo’s tension-inducing soundtrack signalling that the plot will thicken by the end of the film. But when it actually does around the half-time mark, it seems that Le Ny does not have many ideas about what to do with it, other than to throw sharp and abrupt plot twists into the mix, all of which feels like a way to delay the resolution, and ultimately results in an overlong film whose 110-minute running time feels even longer.
The saving grace of Out of Control are the perfectly chosen actors and the director’s fine work with them, which does not come as a surprise, given that Le Ny knows the tricks of the trade, and has dozens of big-screen and TV roles under her belt. Under her guidance, Omar Sy becomes the embodiment of decency as a husband and a father, and Élodie Bouchez that of a woman who falters briefly in a situation she could not predict, while Vanessa Paradis radiates the energy of a woman who wants to start her life over once again. However, the MVPs of the cast are José Garcia, the star of Le Ny’s previous effort, who makes the compelling transition from a seemingly romantic man to an obsessed control freak, and Jennifer Decker, whose turn as Marie’s artsy sister Cassandra also serves to create a sense of community among the characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment