“A suspicion”: Odile Vuillemin as “black widow” in the France 2 mini-series

That evening, Pascal Dubreuil went to see his son. Then he told his wife that he had to go to a client’s house and would be home late. But, overcome by acute drowsiness, he stopped on the side of the road and collapsed on his steering wheel. An individual, lurking in the shadows of the night, jumped out, doused the car with gasoline, and threw a lit lighter into its trunk.

In the early morning, the police could only note the death of Pascal Dubreuil in the charred carcass of his vehicle. At her home, Mathilde (Joyce Bibring), the police commander in charge of the investigation, meets the victim’s grieving adult daughter.

She then goes, flanked by her lieutenant Karim, to the florist shop of Pascal Dubreuil’s wife, Isabelle (Odile Vuillemin). They find themselves faced with a woman who initially does not understand the terrible news, then refuses it, before passing out. “If she has something to reproach herself for, she deserves a direct Oscar”quips Karim ironically.

An intense psychological duel

However, Mathilde will be wary, even before Pascal’s funeral, of this woman: was she really unaware that her husband had a mistress? Why did she never get custody of her son, a high school student? By looking into Isabelle’s life, Mathilde becomes certain that Isabelle not only killed her husband. But she is also what is commonly called a “black widow”, that is, a woman who kills her husbands. She has not a shred of proof, nor a motive. Then begins between the two women, and in four one-hour episodes, an intense psychological duel.

The screenwriter of this mini-series, Franck Ollivier, was inspired by several cases of black widows. “I draw a lot from the newshe confides on the phone. I came across several cases of this type there. It stimulated my imagination. I made a sort of summary. I didn’t want money to be the motive: it’s not very interesting and it doesn’t make for good criminal characters. I had to find deeper, more twisted feelings that reveal darker sides of humanity. Especially since these women are often described as cheerful, lively, unsuspected, which undoubtedly allows them to slip through the cracks. »

France 2 presents this series as a thriller, where the viewer wonders about Isabelle’s guilt. However, even before the end of the first episode, the accumulation of clues clearly points to her. “Mathilde and Isabelle, they are two brains, two minds that clashcontinues Franck Ollivier. Mathilde enters Isabelle’s head with the risk of exposing herself too much and being in turn exploited or thrown out of the investigation. This conflict between these two women constitutes the framework of the story, much more than Isabelle’s guilt or innocence. »

The two actresses, Odile Vuillemin, as a cold monster, and Joyce Bibring, are fantastic. Without revolutionizing the genre, A suspicion is a very good psychological thriller.

A suspicionFrance 2, 9:10 p.m., October 16, 2024