ANDRE TECHINE
Bil’s rating (out of 5): BBB.
Original Title: La fille du RER
France, 2009. Union Generale Cinematographique, SBS Films, France 2 Cinema, Soficinéma 5, Sofica UGC 1, Canal+, TPS Star, Centre National du Cinema et de L’Image Animee. Screenplay by André Téchiné, Odile Barski, Jean-Marie Besset, based on the play by Jean-Marie Besset. Cinematography by Julien Hirsch. Produced by Said Ben Said. Music by Philippe Sarde. Production Design by Michele Abbe-Vannier. Costume Design by Khadija Zeggai. Film Editing by Martine Giordano.
Émilie Dequenne plays a young woman whose dim career prospects are worrying her mother (Catherine Deneuve), and things don’t improve when she begins dating a tough guy (Nicolas Duvauchelle) who picks her up on the street. Dequenne and her new beau get jobs together, hired to guard a closed commercial property that eventually sees Duvauchelle get stabbed and go to prison when it turns out that he was knowingly taking part in a drug front. Dequenne responds by pretending that she was the latest victim in a series of anti-semitic attacks occuring on Paris transit, which then has Deneuve reach out to an old school friend who is now a human rights lawyer (Michel Blanc), ostensibly to get his help but actually because she immediately suspects that her daughter is lying. There’s a side plot with Blanc’s son (Mathieu Demy) and his estranged relationship with his ex-wife (Ronit Elkabetz) that is also part of the drama in Andre Techine’s adaptation of Jean-Marie Besset’s play La Fille du RER. The acting is excellent and, as can be expected from the master filmmaker, there’s a fresh pace at which everything moves, the surprises in the plot all unfold in the exact rhythm that they need to, but there’s also a sense that the play dealt more seriously with a lot of the issues that feel only lightly touched upon here.
