En Liberté
Available to rent on Youtube & Google Play
Film Title
En Liberté!
English Title
The Trouble with You
Year
2018
Director
Pierre Salvadori
Synopsis
In a town on the French Riviera, detective Yvonne is the young widow of police chief Santi, a local hero. When she realizes her husband was not exactly the model of virtue so idolized by their young son, and that an innocent young man, Antoine, has spent 8 years in prison as Santi’s scapegoat, she is thrown into turmoil. Yvonne wants to do everything she can to help this very charming Antoine get back to his life and his wife. Everything that is, except telling the truth. But Antoine is having trouble adjusting to life on the other side, to say the least, and soon blows a fuse leading to a spectacular sequence of events.
Honours/Awards
• Sélection À La Quinzaine Des Réalisateurs—Cannes 2019
• Nine César Award Nominations 2019 (but, sadly, no wins)
- Best film
- Best Director, Pierre Salvador
- Best Actor, Pio Marmaï
- Best Actress, Adèle Haenel
- Best supporting actor, Damien Bonnard
- Best supporting actress, Audrey Tautou
- Best original script scénario original, Pierre Salvadori, Benoît Graffin & Benjamin Charbit
- Best Editing, Isabelle Devinck
- Best Original Music, Camille Bazbaz
Adèle’s role
Yvonne, police lieutenant, a mother, & the widow of a corrupt policeman.
Excerpts from reviews (my bolding)
“A FRENCH STAR
Over the last ten years Adèle Haenel has been working vigorously to establish her name, and now she is one of the true stars of French cinema. This year she attended Cannes with Céline Sciamma’s highly-regarded Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Quentin Dupieux’s Deerskin. She is on a real hot streak, turning in another excellent performance in The Trouble With You. She shows real comedic talent throughout, and imbues Yvonne and the story with the heart it needs when necessary.
Haenel shows great chemistry with her co-stars Marmaï and Damien Bonnard. Both men deliver strong performances too….
However strong her co-stars are, this is ultimately Haenel’s film. She is great as a woman who is spiralling and has no idea what is the right thing to do. In the past, she has established how strong she is in dramatic films, and here Haenel proves she can adapt and shift seamlessly into a comedic role.”
Haenel shows great chemistry with her co-stars Marmaï and Damien Bonnard. Both men deliver strong performances too….
However strong her co-stars are, this is ultimately Haenel’s film. She is great as a woman who is spiralling and has no idea what is the right thing to do. In the past, she has established how strong she is in dramatic films, and here Haenel proves she can adapt and shift seamlessly into a comedic role.”
“If the 29-year-old actress is today one of the most in demand in French cinema, she does not give in to the star system. And tries to make people laugh intelligently with "En Liberté!" By Pierre Salvadori.”
“Complementing their attractiveness with great acting, you cannot take your eyes off Marmai and Haenel. The director makes use of Haenel's beautiful face and green eyes with close-ups in emotional scenes and Marmai' toned body in action scenes. There is an overall high standard of physical beauty with Tautou, Marmai and Haenel, combined with the serene panorama of the French Riviera town where the story takes place. So, I need to confess that beauty is an indispensable part of the film.”
Comments
I love Adèle in this film. It is a crazy, wild ride and Adèle and Pio, who worked together in Alyah back in 2012, are together again and they are wonderful. The vibe of this film is completely different to Alyah, however. It is a screwball comedy and Adèle shows that she totally nails comedy and she is so tender with her son in this film. Her delivery of her lines is perfection itself and her acting is in a totally different register to most of what we have seen before. Just as she re-invented her style of acting for Die Blumen von Gestern, she has done so again in this role. The woman is SO talented!
Set on the French Riviera, this film taught me how to swear in southern French style—though I still think that our Anglo-Saxon style of swearing (single syllable swear words) is more emphatic. Adèle is astonishingly beautiful in this role (images below are clear evidence for this!). Through the film festival we have watched Adèle grow from a stunningly attractive teenager into a truly beautiful woman.
Rewatch Comments
This is a fun film that is crazy and riotous. The basic premise of the film—a cop's widow seeks to make amends after discovering her husband was corrupt—is not one that immediately suggests comedy as the genre of choice. Pierre Salvadori, however, didn't see it that way and made this fun film. Her reunited Adèle and Pio Marmai, who worked together back in 2012 in Alyah and (according to interviews) are friends off screen. This time Adéle gets top billing. YAY!
There are a couple of continuity problems in the film that grate a little. The first is about 10 minutes in, when the police are interviewing the patrons of the S&M brothel. When Louis is interviewing the priest in leathers the front-on shots of the priest have him hatless, but the reverse shots from outside the office show him wearing a leather cap. It is a bit sloppy not to have caught this error. The other continuity problem is after Yvonne has dived into the cove. Both Yvonne and Antoine have been fully submerged, but in some shots Yvonne's clothes are only wet from the shoulder down. This might be able to be explained away, but it isn't consistent with the previous shots. The other interesting thing to note isn't a continuity problem, but just the reality of shooting a film. In the scene where Yvonne is standing in the rain, it is pouring rain on her, but the sun is shining in the background. This is the reality of having a shooting schedule and no control over the weather. The same can be seen in the raining scene in Les Combattants.
There are some great scenes and great lines through the film, and the actors deliver them brilliantly. Adéle's portrayal of Yvonne whimpering when she wants to get her own way and go to a police raid is hilarious. The "Oh, putain" scene is pure gold! Few words; delivered perfectly. Adèle then gets to head butt someone—her last head butt was in Les Combattants—this time it's on the dance floor. Very funny. Following that, the scene when she is letting Antione and Agnes get away by delaying the security guard is hilarious. She delivers the lines in such a dead pan way. Possibly my favourite line in the film (which is longer in French, we just get the cut down version) is when they are under the car and Antoine explains why the restaurant is in flames by saying, "They wanted to close". Yvonne responds with the hilarious line, "Provincial life". Adèle's comedic timing and delivery is perfect. She is also gorgeous in the "I have allergies" scene with Audrey Tatou. Pio Marmai is also fabulous throughout. The other leading man, Damien Bonnard, is also great, in particular in the scene when Yvonne seduces him. He is cute in his hesitance, surprise, and joy at the change in their relationship. [Damien Bonnard can also be seen with Noémie Merlant in Curiosa.]
I also like the way Adèle portrays a young mother—she is so sweet in all her scenes with children across her films. The outfits she wears and the way she is filmed are both fabulous. She looks great in this film.
This is an enjoyable romp of a film where Adèle gets to demonstrate why she is at the top of her profession. She was nominated for the Best Actress César, but did not win. She should have. As directors have realised her range of talents she is getting to explore new registers and styles of acting and we are the beneficiaries of her choices.
Merci Adèle Haenel!
