Sibyl

The trailer was classically misleading. I did not expect a pale remake of Providence (1977) directed by Alain Resnais.

In short: 1) Sibyl has a few undisclosed skeletons in the closet and manages them while drinking abusively. 2) Sibyl is a shrink and the border between her private life and her professional life does not exist. 3) Sibyl is a writer and she draws inspiration from her own surroundings. Thus, given these three points, fiction and reality are quickly confused, for Sibyl first and for the audience even more.

Although the actresses Sandra Hüller and Adèle Exarchopoulos are outstanding, this story of a lost woman suffering of emotional distress is globally boring.

This film is a mess of unsavory characters and bad, ridiculously unlikely decision. Some of the acting is good, the storyline is silly, the sex gratuitous and graphic. There is not one interesting character. Despite the attempt to give some background to why sybil is so messed up (an absent mother from whom she distanced herself and a sister who gives sybil's children lectures on how to be manipulative) it's a fail all around.

This movie is much more confusing than it needed to be which makes the immersion in the story very challenging at the start without any big payoff for the effort. It's just a way to try and make the movie seem more interesting than in reality is. Well shot and acted.

I can't recall seeing a film with so many good and great elements: cinematography, acting, a good deal of great dialogue, that was assembled into such a let down of total experience. It is like observing a kid who is smart, has everything, goes to he best schools -- yet goes nowhere in life.

I don't know where this project went wrong. Was it deep flaws from the beginning and they went ahead without resolving them, or was it some kind of creative fight in post production, perhaps about comedy vs drama as the goal in editing?

I was somewhat skeptical before entering the theater, thinking it would turn out to be another boring film about white people surrendering themselves to hordes of therapists, french woman suffering from romantic distress and so on. However, the writer/director cleverly managed to create a layered portrayal of the protagonist shrink and the world she lives in - blending in her present life, her past, the fiction novel she's writing and the movie her patient stars in. The script is mature, quirky and unpredictable enough to handle these four layers without becoming pointless and confusing. The performances are stellar, especially of Sandra Huller as the temperamental film director.

There is no dearth of past french films handling similar material. Yet somehow this film appears fresh and profusely entertaining.