The Girl with a Bracelet

Completely free of any dramatic tension, a girl is tried for the murder of her best friend. The difference between an adversarial and inquisitorial justice system makes interpretation of the process a bit challenging but the prosecutor seemed to be saying since you can't prove it wasn't you it must have been you. All the old tropes of "she wasn't a virgin so she must have been a murderer" We've all seen Spiral so we know about investigating magistrates so it's still difficult to understand how this one made it to trial

"La Fille au Bracelet" narrates the final phases of a legal process against Lise Bataille, a young teenager accused of murdering her best friend. The director told the story almost like a documentary, and as a person that watched some courtroom recordings of famous cases, I have to say that the movie was realistic and immersed me in the plot. It also explores the relationship between the girl and her parents that need to go through this difficult and long procedure that will consume them, creating tensions between different family members. The psychology of the main character is very well developed, and she was very consistent for the whole length.

I personally think that there were a few scenes that were very boring and were dragged longer than necessary. Even though I was genuinely curious to see how it ended, I think that Stéphane Demoustier and the cast could have done a better job in order to create more tension and keep the audience more engaged. Probably this has to do with the chosen narration style, which wants to emulate as much as possible the reality, however the acting could have been a bit more dramatic and expressive in my humble opinion. If you like European cinema you should definitely give this a shot. It is overall a solid drama with good characters and nice acting.

You need to temper your expectations. This is not a whodunit or a thriller or a suspense. This is not even a courtroom drama for that matter (although it pretends to be one)!!

This is purely a girl and her family's experience when she's accused of murder.

Shows you, that as parents, we know very little about our kids' lives. Which was personally very connecting to me.

I liked the courtroom scenes but I didn't like that prosecutor one bit because she came across as being unprepared for the trial. She just made lots of sensational claims without any basis for them.

Other than that, i loved the mood of the movie throughout.

Firstly contrary to another review, there was *no* goof in presenting photos of the murder scene and the cuts sustained by the victim. Two separate photos were shown to the court: the first was of the murder scene with blood on the sheets and spatter on the wall: the second was what looked like a post-mortem photo showing the position of the cuts. The latter was never presented as having been taken at the scene.

On my impressions of the film, the whole court scene felt very realistic and yet shocking at the same time. How was it that the prosecution was able to inject so much surmise, inuendo and downright personal opinions without being challenged and such statements being struck from the record? Of course this is fiction, but I sincerely hope it does not represent how court cases are conducted in France!

If I speak strongly it's because the acting throughout was excellent, very naturalistic, from Lise through to her family and her lawyer. Not having seen the original film but read that in it the prosecution relies heavily on besmirching the character of the accused, that same tone was very much reflected in this film. I was gripped throughout.

Near to the start, the victim's mother describes huge amounts of blood. With only the face being spared a savage attack. But during the trial, the scene-of-crime photos show no sign of any blood at all; just a few neat wounds. This dichotomy is so extreme that this viewer was entirely distracted from watching the remainder of the movie with any interest. What did it mean? Was it some sort of 'high art' concept? Was it the start of some sort of science fictional adventure? Do the French police wash bodies, launder bed-clothes and wash walls before taking a literally sanitized picture? What does it mean?