Oppressive but necessary, the film “Until the Guard” by Xavier Legrand, this evening on France 3

A couple divorces. He is faced with the usual questions. What to do for children? But, from the start, we have doubts. Could there not be a problem of domestic violence behind it? Is one of them lying? And here we go for a film that unfolds like a thriller…

We gradually fall into the anguish experienced by the character of the mother. At the same time, the point is not unambiguous. We also regularly see things from the point of view of the father or their young son, or even the grandparents. Until the evidence of violence explodes.

Read also: Right to the hilt, the look of a Nantes judge

Xavier Legrand had already made a short film on domestic violence with the same actors. Faced with the success encountered by Before you lose everythinghe realized To the hilt in 2017, which won four César awards, including Best Film. As our colleague Gilles Kerdreux described in 2018, “this film can be experienced as an oppressive ordeal, but it is for a good cause.”

For a first feature film, Xavier Legrand masters his subject in an astonishing way, helped by Léa Drucker, all inwardness, and Denis Ménochet, permanently on a crest line.

France 321 h 05.