THE “WORLD’S” OPINION – MUST SEE
It’s difficult to anticipate Guillaume Nicloux’s next move, as his filmography refuses any form of labeling and gives the impression of moving forward in perpetual bifurcations. Recently there was a horror film (The Tower2022), a melodrama with Fabrice Luchini (The Little One2023), yet another tour of the track with his favorite actor, Michel Houellebecq (In the shoes of Blanche Houellebecqtheir third film together, in 2024). And there, without warning, a biopic on Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), a commission-style film crowning the centenary of the death of the greatest French tragedienne.
The monument would, a priori, have lent itself very well to the exercise of the official biographical film: sumptuous artistic direction, desire for completeness, Actors Studio mimicry… There is none of that, and that is fortunate, in this featherweight biopic, which, with the wave of the hand, rids the exercise of all this cumbersome emphasis.
Signed Nathalie Leuthreau, the scenario chooses the sketch rather than the fresco. He picks up the actress in 1923, on her deathbed, and, from there, goes back in time to focus on two major episodes in her life: 1915, the date when, after a fall on stage, she suffered an amputation of the leg. And 1896, the year when her relatives organized a sumptuous “Sarah Bernhardt day”, which brought together all of Paris. From one to the other runs the common thread of a romantic passion with Lucien Guitry (Laurent Lafitte) – which has never been proven, but the scenario imagines what it wants.
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