In the role of a whistleblower within a nuclear giant, the actress blurs the tracks in a thriller without real suspense.
Par Jean-Luc Wachthausen
© Guy Ferrandis/The Film Office
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Aclose to the success of La Daronne – wacky comedy about an Arabic-French translator from the narcotics squad who sets up her little drug business to pay for her mother’s retirement home – Jean Paul Salomé finds Isabelle Huppert in The Syndicalist. A mix between political film and personal drama. All in the sensitive nuclear sector which has had a bad reputation since the Chernobyl disasters in 1986, then Fukushima in 2011.
It all starts with a true story that dates back to 2012, the very day when Maureen Kearney, CFDT delegate at Areva, has an appointment with the President of the Republic François Hollande. In the morning, she was found gagged, tied to a chair, her stomach slashed in an A shape by a knife, the handle of which had been thrust into her vagina. Horror scene which everything suggests that she was the victim of an intimidation attempt. Problem: the investigators find no trace of the attackers.
Still, the victim is at the heart of a sensitive case in the French nuclear sector, which threatens fifty thousand jobs. Unionist and whistleblower, this Irish-born denounces an arrangement between the CEO of EDF Henri Proglio and the Chinese electrician CGNPC. Secretary of the central works council, she maintains excellent relations with Anne Lauvergeon, president of the executive board of the European nuclear giant, replaced in 2011 by Luc Oursel. But the one who is criticized for not being an engineer but a simple English teacher in the context of continuing education quickly hits a wall.
Faithful to reality – filming in Bercy, Rambouillet hospital and the Versailles court – and to the investigation by journalist Caroline Michel-Aguirre, whose book title he kept, Jean-Paul Salomé goes back to the thread of the story carried by the ambiguous acting of Isabelle Huppert, who knows how to maintain mystery and doubt about her character. She is surrounded by solid actors: Marina Foïs, very fair in the role of Anne Lauvergeon, Yvan Attal in the angry one of Luc Oursel, and Grégory Gadebois in the role of Maureen’s outdated husband.
political scandal
Beyond this ugly affair with the air of barbouzerie, the spectator, just like the suspicious policeman – excellent Pierre Deladonchamps – who leads the investigation, has a lot of trouble getting an idea of the facts. Is Maureen a victim or guilty of this machination followed by justice? Wouldn’t it be a staging put on by herself and her husband? Hasn’t she been overwhelmed by her own revelation which is turning into a political scandal? Did she invent an alibi to get out of it? So many unanswered questions. A first trial where she appealed, then a second did not reveal the truth.
READ ALSOWhen French cinema prides itself on politicsFor lack of a nervous staging, we have the impression of going in circles, of playing the length – two hours – in this fake thriller which switches into the portrait of an elusive, unpredictable, even eccentric woman with her kitsch look. , her colorful outfits and her collection of spectacular glasses and earrings. These are only appearances that accentuate the disarray and loneliness of a heroine who comes to doubt her innocence, tries to reconstruct the circumstances of the rape herself as she is let down from all sides, including by her husband who ends up doubting him too.
The Syndicalist leave it at that, with this taste of unfinished business, without really causing trouble. We lost the suspense on the way and we then fall into the ordinary drama which avoids the scathing social satire dear to the Chabrol of The drunkenness of powerof which the same Isabelle Huppert was the headliner in her last role for the filmmaker.