It's based on a true story ;Severine Vincent is none other than Véronique Vasseur,who was really a head doctor in the "Prison De La Santé " (= heath jail) ;at the time(?) -the action takes place in the nineties- ,its name was a misnomer indeed for the prison is depicted as a living hell;since,the prisoners' living conditions have improved ,thanks to the book she wrote about her experience,but lines,at the end of this MTV work ,warns us that France is still lagging behind in the world ,as far as the prisoners ' rights are concerned.
Yves Rénier,who is mainly remembered in France as an actor in the "Commissaire Moulin " TV series,directed the movie à la Yves Boisset,a straightforward approach though not particular about details: the doctor's husband is depicted as a selfish monster-see the bourgeois dinner scene and the joke about the vet surgeons - ,only concerned by his career ,and almost all the people who surround the heroine are hateful-see her daughter's birthday party.But Mathilde Seigner ,Veronique Vasseur's own niece ,gives a convincing portrayal,and if some of her scenes may seem over-the - top ,some more intimate scenes are deeply moving:the black inmate ,suffering from endocarditis ,telling her "my mom told me that I had no heart";the scene of the golden earring in which Severine smiles for the first time in the prison ;it seems sometimes that,with the exception of her daughter,she finds her moments of happiness when she's relieving the prisoners' pain.
