Worth: $16.50
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Cast:
Louis Garrel, Roschdy Zem, Noémie Merlant, Anouk Grinberg
Intro:
… a sweetly hilarious look at the things we do for love, and how the line between moral good and bad can be as blurry as the one between a performance and how we really feel.
Aquarium worker Abel (Louis Garrel) has given up on second chances in more ways than one. After the loss of his wife, he’s closed himself off from feeling much of anything, let alone falling in love again. When his mother Sylvie (Anouk Grinberg) marries Michel (Roschdy Zem), he is understandably sceptical that the ex-con has turned over a new leaf.
The way that this French crim-rom-com treats the criminal element is romantic. There’s a nobility in Michel and later Abel’s actions, shown less as something objectively wrong and more as something unsavoury, which must be done to achieve a form of happiness, both for one’s self and for others. It also aligns with the film’s view of love – if something should go wrong, that kind of impact not only has long-lasting consequences, but can sometimes shut someone off from ever engaging with it again, even if it could lead to a positive outcome.
Lying and social performance is treated with a similar grey morality, to the point of nudging the fourth wall when it gets to preparing for a diversion as part of a larger heist plot. As Abel’s best friend Clémence (Noémie Merlant) and Michele urge him to make his ‘performance’ believable, it hits a real point of surreality when it sinks in that the audience is essentially watching a troupe of actors empathically give direction and lines to the man who is the film’s actual director and co-writer – Louis Garrel himself.
Not that the film is one prolonged metafictional exercise, although with the wit and charm on display, it could easily have gotten away with it. On top of the warm and engaging performances (Merlant especially makes the most of being in something more playful than Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Paris 13th District or Tár), the chemistry makes each and every coupling a joy to watch. Abel and his mother are delightfully erratic, Abel and Michele have the kind of underlying menace but also mateship that makes for the best kind of crime fiction, and Abel and Clémence ooze charm with seemingly minimal effort. The latter’s climactic moment in a diner not only unveils genuine emotional truth through beautifully-crafted dialogue, but it also helps to rebut a reoccurring oversimplification that acting (in any context) is simply ‘being someone you’re not’. Oftentimes, truly great performances come from somewhere real inside.
The Innocent is a sweetly hilarious look at the things we do for love, and how the line between moral good and bad can be as blurry as the one between a performance and how we really feel. It has the kind of cast one could happily watch order lunch for 100 minutes straight, making the captivating and immensely emotive story they’ve been given to perform feel like a bonus. Another solid addition to the great French tradition of love stories, and another fine notch on Louis Garrel’s belt as a director.
