«Grand Expectations» - Movie Review by Kinoafisha
A story about how one incident can turn life upside down.
Madeline (Rebecca Mardor) and Antoine (Benjamin Lavern) - a happy couple, they have a lot in common: they are young, both have completed their education and are recommended for the exam at the prestigious National School of Administration under the Prime Minister of France, both hold left-wing views, although for Antoine it's a bit amusing considering his, shall we say, non-proletarian background. A beautiful vacation in Corsica before the exams turns fatal. An unpleasant altercation with a local resident, provoked by Antoine, ends with Madeline killing a stranger. Madeline and Antoine decide to hide it, but will they be able to keep the secret?
The original French title, "De grandes espérances," is not accidentally reminiscent of Charles Dickens' famous novel "Great Expectations." The criminal plot in the film, in fact, plays a supporting role. The main focus is the story of a young person (unlike Dickens' protagonist, a girl) with strong principles, who has to go through very harsh tests of these principles. In the exam, the main character is asked if she understands the difference between secrecy and lies. The search for an answer to this question is a major theme in this story.
A significant part of the plot is devoted not to the actual investigation (which has little meaning since the entire crime is shown to the viewer from beginning to end in the first act of the film), but to the beginning of Madeline's political career in the office of the enterprising deputy Gabriel (Emmanuelle Berco). At times, a controversial technique, where the plot abruptly moves forward several weeks or even months, effectively works at least once - when the former young idealist Madeline skillfully exposes a heap of dirty laundry about Gabriel's political opponent in the next scene. It is important to note that the main character is a militant leftist, which is emphasized several times in the plot. She strives for justice for all, but politics is not a safe sphere to exist with such views.
The film essentially revolves around politics. France is one of the most politically active countries in Europe, and a person familiar with the local political climate will undoubtedly find more subtexts in the plot. However, to fully appreciate this story, it is by no means necessary to distinguish between Le Figaro and Le Parisien. Director and screenwriter Sylvain Declou, who has already explored French capitalism in his previous film "The Salesman," cannot be called uninvolved. Nonetheless, the director refrains from being overly impassioned and spends most of the time capturing the aforementioned story of growth and development.
Benjamin Lavern may be less known to the domestic audience than, for example, his almost contemporary Louis Garrel, but he is in no way inferior to the latter in talent. In this film, he plays one of the most despicable characters in his career (in film, at least, Lavern has had numerous roles in theater): a weak, arrogant, and insecure worm and a repugnant manipulator. This is even a slightly forbidden technique, as a result of which the main heroine, excellently portrayed by Rebecca Marder (whom you recently saw in Ozon's "In the House"), inherently gains the audience's sympathy, although she is also quite ambiguous.
Madeline displays symptoms of either Asperger's or eccentric and slightly sinister aloofness, and she has a subtly gray morality that manifests itself in her principled nature. After all, she killed someone, and her scenes of conscience are far less convincing than fragments of her subsequent active political career. Despite all this, her character remains convincing and evokes sympathy, and the director has enough restraint not to spoon-feed the viewer and allow them to draw their own conclusions. After all, politics is an extremely specific affair.
In the end, "De grandes espérances" turns out to be not so much a thriller as a substantial and unhurried drama about the role of chance in a person's life, although it is not devoid of a certain suspense and tension. Viewers who appreciate such plots will undoubtedly enjoy it.
