THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – WHY NOT
The concept film enters the field of French fiction with the sixth feature film by Gilles Bourdos, which invites us to a curious closed session, an hour and a quarter in the passenger compartment of a car in the company of a driver in dire need. The formula is borrowed from a thriller from across the Channel, Locke (2013), by British screenwriter Steven Knight (otherwise known for creating the series Peaky Blinders), dont The Choice carries out the transposition into the Parisian setting, with Vincent Lindon at the wheel in place of Tom Hardy, and the tone of an intimate drama in place of devastating suspense.
Joseph Cross (Lindon), site manager about to pour the largest concrete slab in Europe, suddenly leaves everything behind to rush, from the distant suburbs, to a Parisian maternity ward, where a woman carrying her child is due to give birth. . During the journey, which is also that of the film, Joseph tries to resolve a triple emergency by telephone: to manage the construction site remotely through the intermediary of a terrified assistant, to confess to his wife this long-hidden illegitimate paternity, and during this time to reassure the parturient in the middle of a panic attack. One phone call after another, Joseph spares neither saliva nor argument, so that, that evening, “the whole world” don't collapse on his head.
Made from a series of telephone conversations, The Choice relies on primarily verbal material, a text whose challenge is to suggest without showing. The problem, faced with this text which could very well have been that of a play or a radio drama, is that there is not much left in the cinema to film, other than the alternation between interior and exterior of the passenger compartment. On one side, the hero driver under pressure whose dejected gaze aims at a vanishing point on the horizon. On the other, the road which passes indifferently through the windshield, where sections of desolate urbanity pierce through. From this small handful of angles we will never escape.
inner voice
Minimal, the system rests entirely on the shoulders of Vincent Lindon, who here carves out a sort of alone-on-stage, where even his playing partners (Emmanuelle Devos, Micha Lescot, Grégory Gadebois, Cédric Kahn) are relegated to the rank of voice on the other side of the hands-free kit. The actor gives free rein to his favorite register, that of “crisis management”, not skimping on the appropriate lexicon – “Calm down”, “I would like us to talk to each other” – and the rants which he has made his specialty. His performance alone bears the heavy responsibility of bringing into existence these three off-screen who will remain outside the film throughout – in which way the actor shares the solitude of his character.
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