The film isn’t a total wash. Seydoux finds ways to move and emote through her Noh mask, and Dumont finds interesting avenues to explore, tracking the uneasy dance between compassion and commodification when dealing with hot-button stories. Only it’s all too much, too long, too repetitive, too one-note, too contemptuous of the very idea of cinematic pleasure to really land.
France
France, Germany, Italy · 2021
2h 13m
Director Bruno Dumont
Starring Léa Seydoux, Blanche Gardin, Benjamin Biolay, Emanuele Arioli
Genre Comedy, Drama
Add to Watchlist
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
France de Meurs is a seemingly unflappable superstar TV journalist whose career, homelife, and psychological stability are shaken after she carelessly drives into a young delivery man on a busy Paris street. This accident triggers a series of self-reckonings, as well as a strange romance that proves impossible to shake.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij
Perhaps it is precisely Dumont’s point that satire and the real world have been converging for a long time, but this alone is not enough insight to sustain a movie that’s over two hours long and contains a protagonist few will warm to. for such a high-powered auteur/leading-lady collaboration, France feels decidedly unspectacular.
Through the character of France, Dumont crafts an entertaining critique of the media more interesting for its formal and stylistic oddities than for its arguments, especially in the way he radically slows down a usually frenetic world.
Screen Daily by Jonathan Romney
This satire about media, emotional alienation and – need it be said? – the state of the nation makes its point quickly and forcefully before going on to make it again and again, with different modulations, for over two hours. It’s a shame, because somewhere within this sprawling piece is something audacious and playful.
Dumont’s secular crisis-of-faith drama has much to say about the corrosive effect of our 24-hour news culture. But it is also indecisive and compromised and plays out as a prolonged admission of defeat.
Users who liked this film also liked
Metropia
Someone is listening to your thoughts
- ✭ ✭
- Sweden, Denmark, Norway • 2009
- Director Tarik Saleh
- Cast Vincent Gallo, Juliette Lewis, Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgård, Alexander Skarsgård, Sofia Helin
- Genre Animation, Drama, Science Fiction, Thriller
- Available on fuboTV, Peacock Premium, Peacock Premium Plus, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, Freevee, Kanopy, Hoopla, Plex, Plex Channel
SPEC: Zero
(SPEC〜零〜)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 2013
- Director Yukihiko Tsutsumi
- Cast Erika Toda, Ryo Kase, Saki Fukuda, Yuu Tokui, Ken Yasuda, Tetsushi Tanaka
- Genre Action
- Available on No streaming locations found.
From the Land of the Moon
(Mal de pierres)
Sometimes love is the only thing that’s real.
- ✭ ✭
- France, Belgium, Canada • 2016
- Director Nicole Garcia
- Cast Marion Cotillard, Louis Garrel, Àlex Brendemühl, Brigitte Roüan, Victoire Du Bois, Aloïse Sauvage
- Genre Drama, Romance
- Available on AMC+, AMC+ Amazon Channel, AMC Plus Apple TV Channel , IFC Films Unlimited Apple TV Channel, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, YouTube, Kanopy
The Stronghold
(BAC Nord)
What is the cost of fighting crime?
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- France • 2021
- Director Cédric Jimenez
- Cast Gilles Lellouche, François Civil, Karim Leklou, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Cyril Lecomte, Kenza Fortas
- Genre Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
- Available on Netflix, Netflix basic with Ads
True Mothers
(朝が来る)
Six years after adopting their child, a woman posing as the biological mother attempts to extort a young couple.
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 2020
- Director Naomi Kawase
- Cast Hiromi Nagasaku, Arata Iura, Aju Makita, Reo Satou, Miyoko Asada, Hiroko Nakajima
- Genre Drama
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, YouTube, Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Kanopy, Hoopla, Plex, Plex Channel
DNA
(ADN)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- France, Algeria • 2020
- Director Maïwenn
- Cast Fanny Ardant, Louis Garrel, Dylan Robert, Marine Vacth, Caroline Chaniolleau, Alain Françon
- Genre Drama
- Available on Netflix, Netflix basic with Ads
A Hero
(قهرمان)
A good deed turns a man into a local celebrity, and also raises the suspicions of those closest to him.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- France, Iran • 2021
- Director Asghar Farhadi
- Cast
- Genre Drama
- Available on Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Freevee
Gagarine
A teenager turns his housing project into a spaceship before it can be demolished.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- France • 2020
- Director Fanny Liatard, Jérémy Trouilh
- Cast Alséni Bathily, Lyna Khoudri, Jamil McCraven, Finnegan Oldfield, Farida Rahouadj, Denis Lavant
- Genre Drama, Science Fiction
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Tubi TV
Paris, 13th District
(Les Olympiades)
Three young people living in Paris fall in and out of love with each other.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- France • 2021
- Director Jacques Audiard
- Cast Noémie Merlant, Makita Samba, Lucie Zhang, Jehnny Beth, Geneviève Doang, Pol White
- Genre Drama, Romance
- Available on Hulu, AMC+, AMC+ Amazon Channel, AMC Plus Apple TV Channel , IFC Films Unlimited Apple TV Channel, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube
Hive
(Zgjoi)
Fahrije’s husband has been missing since the war in Kosovo: does she wait for his return, or move forward on her own?
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Kosovo, Switzerland, Albania • 2021
- Director Blerta Basholli
- Cast Yllka Gashi, Çun Lajçi, Aurita Agushi, Kumrije Hoxha, Adriana Matoshi, Molike Maxhuni
- Genre Drama
- Available on Criterion Channel, Kino Film Collection, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, YouTube, Kanopy, Hoopla
Nitram
Still living at home, loner Nitram finds an unexpected friend in Helen. But when their relationship ends, he starts spiralling.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Australia • 2021
- Director Justin Kurzel
- Cast Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis, Sean Keenan, Essie Davis, Anthony LaPaglia, Lucy-Rose Leonard
- Genre Drama, Thriller
- Available on AMC+, AMC+ Amazon Channel, AMC Plus Apple TV Channel , IFC Films Unlimited Apple TV Channel, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, YouTube
The Crusade
(La Croisade)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- France • 2021
- Director Louis Garrel
- Cast Louis Garrel, Laetitia Casta, Joseph Engel, Ilinka Lony, Julia Boème, Lionel Dray
- Genre Comedy
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Angèle
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- France • 2021
- Director Brice VDH, Sébastien Rensonnet
- Cast Angèle, Dua Lipa
- Genre Documentary, Music
- Available on Netflix, Netflix basic with Ads
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
(Vampire humaniste cherche suicidaire consentant)
A reluctant vampire and a suicidal teenager concoct a plan.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Canada • 2023
- Director Ariane Louis-Seize
- Cast Sara Montpetit, Félix-Antoine Bénard, Steve Laplante, Sophie Cadieux, Noémie O'Farrell, Arnaud Vachon
- Genre Comedy, Fantasy, Horror, Romance
- Available on MUBI, MUBI Amazon Channel, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango At Home, Amazon Video, YouTube