The Animal Kingdom, Bernadette, Between the Lines... Films to watch or avoid this week

Fantastic by Thomas Cailley, 2H08

Some call them “creatures”; others prefer to say “critters.” What are they talking about ? The world has changed. Some humans turn more or less into animals. In the traffic jam at the beginning, a sort of large bird escapes from an ambulance. A father and son witness the scene. They are used to. Their wife and mother awaits them in a specialized center, covered in hair, unrecognizable, a double of Jean Marais in Beauty and the Beast. All that remains is his gaze. Distraught, united, colliding like two flints, François and Émile leave for the South. Direction the Landes. This change of air will do them good. The teenager is sulky, flammable, skinned alive. They stay at the campsite in a prefabricated building. At college, the new kid is looking for his bearings. Romain Duris, the father, works as a cook in a restaurant by the river. The mother disappeared in the forest. They are looking for her. Under the moon, Pierre Bachelet blasting the car radio, they drive wildly through the woods, shouting his first name. " Mom ! », shouts the child, as if his life depended on it. The scene could descend into ridicule, it triggers cascading emotions. Thomas Cailley films a reality that is disrupted, taking a step aside. This daily fantasy “soft” benefits from special effects that are anything but eye-catching. The residents are divided. There are some who are ready to live together. Opposite, the skeptics will not hesitate to pull out the gun. Meanwhile, young Émile pulls out the claws that grow under his nails. His secret must never be revealed. Cailley shows the undergrowth like John Boorman in Deliverance, a universe populated by screams, quivering ferns, neophytes practicing flying or catching fish with their bare hands. The fable avoids the pitfall of didacticism thanks to a concern for realism tempered with concern. IN.

Also read Our review of Animal Kingdom: beast of cinema

Comedy by Léa Domenach, 1H32

First lady, it must be said quickly. Nobody pays attention to her. She's always in the background. One day, Bernadette Chirac had enough. The Élysée, her husband had wanted it so much. She had nothing to do with his election. Why do we persist in putting it aside? We make fun of his pink suits, his out-of-date hairstyle. Nerdy, that is the epithet that best defines it. She knows it. All this will change. They will see, these rascals of servants who forgot to add “Madame Chirac” to their “Hello” in the corridors of the palace. Claude - the inflexible Sara Giraudeau - is not the last to neglect her. It's a bit strong. He is given a communications advisor deemed harmless (Denis Podalydès, delicious as a false modest rogue). The duo will create a surprise. Those around you are not safe from sparks. For her first film, Léa Domenach avoids the pitfalls of the biopic. She chooses comedy, both tender and scathing. There is something very Anglo-Saxon here, this way of not waiting centuries to represent existing characters, this humor supported by solid documentation. The stroke of genius is to have hired Catherine Deneuve. The actress has a blast, between claw strikes, vulgar lines and intimate sequences. Even the choruses which punctuate the action fail to shock. And then this rhythm, this momentum, all these memories. That was France from 1995 to 2007. Men don't come out any better. It is the law of its kind. Michel Vuillermoz makes a laughable, touching, confused president. The film retraces an era, the accident of Lady Di (Jacques Chirac nowhere to be found), the episode of the Yellow Pieces which restores its image, the betrayal of Sarkozy (Laurent Stocker, astonishing mimicry). It's about the other daughter, Laurence, who was a cross for the couple (Maud Wyler, flayed alive). Dialogues with little touches (“- It’s important, loyalty.” “- First short story.”), Catherine Deneuve impeccable, as if she had been waiting for this role forever. Bernadette? Perfect, we tell you. With or without a German accent. IN.

Romance by Eva Husson, 1H50

When did she realize she would be a writer? This was done in three stages. There was the day he was born, the day he was given an old machine whose “P” key got stuck. And the third? It's a secret. Between the lines is the story of this secret. It goes back to March 30, 1924. Jane worked as a servant for the Nivens in Berkshire. For Mother's Day, these aristocrats had given her the day off. They had a picnic with friends by the river. Jane takes the opportunity to rush off to join the neighbors' son in his nearby mansion. Paul is looking forward to it. Their affair must remain confidential. Naked bodies wrap themselves in white sheets. It's a farewell. They know that. They blame themselves. In eleven days, Paul is getting married. He will marry a woman of his rank, become a lawyer. He will slip away in the English style: he too is invited to lunch on the grass. Meanwhile, sweet, pale Jane walks around the empty house naked. She stops in front of the portraits of ancestors, lingers in the library where she caresses the edges of the leather-bound books with a finger, breathes in the scent of the flowers in the vases. In the kitchen, she devours pâté en croute, drinks a beer from the bottle, lights a cigarette with undisguised pleasure. She better savor these moments. She will never forget them. What happened to Eva Husson? The Frenchwoman had gotten into trouble with teenage gang bangers and had followed in the footsteps of female fighters in Kurdistan. Here she sets foot with incredible delicacy in a lawned Britain, adapting a novel by Graham Swift. The film is luminously sensual. There floats over these careful images an intense feeling of loss, the imminence of danger. We feel the birth of a vocation, the tremor of a world that is fleeing, of audacity and transgression. IN.

Drama by Nadir Moknèche, 1h30

The look, the mouth, the forehead, everything is sulky about Hadjira. She didn't want to be there. His mother, suffocating, forced his hand. So that she gives it to Saïd, the main character of this film with its soft tone, elegant direction, judiciously supported by a jazzy soundtrack. Both Saïd and Hadjira have a past to hide, a secret to hide. Their marriage will serve as a veil placed over their lives and personalities too different from others not to be shameful: she has been to prison, he is homosexual. Both sinned in the eyes of their conservative Muslim circles. But the director is careful not to offer an accusatory film, where families act cruelly and children play heroic victims. Saïd's parents are loving and want the best for their children. Traditions simply weigh like a lead weight. So, in the same way that he would not dare to say anything to Hadjira once they were married, the young man never discussed his sexual orientation with his father and mother. He kept quiet his secret, which everyone knew, and immersed himself in the violence of lovemaking without a future. Saïd watches his new wife get bored, set the table, dream of a real couple. Not very courageous, he thinks of Vincent, a bearded trumpeter whom he loved in the past. Their daily life is lined with unsaid things. Hadjira sympathizes in the street with a neighbor, who is her exact opposite: Fariza, played by Zahia Dehar, ex-escort girl who became a real actress with An Easy Girl in 2019. We can't say that she plays well, she rather unfolds its own score of a desirable creature that its beauty makes haughty. And it works. Hadjira flinches at his touch and tries, in vain, to speak to Saïd. The air of the sea sets free stops at the moment when the false bride and groom began to understand each other, talk to each other and wonder how to live together. They were going to realize that they were both ultimately alike. Hadjira would finally be able to stop sulking. B.P.