“As with all French people of my generation, he is someone we were used to seeing on television through some notable speeches. And like everyone else, I did not know his life, his work as a magistrate and even in politics”. When he embarks on the creation of Simone, the trip of the century (broadcast Sunday January 19, 2025 at 9:10 p.m. on France 2), Olivier Dahan knows very little about the woman whose life he wants to tell on screen. So he does research, a lot of research. “I have read almost everything about Simone Veil. […] The documentation was useful to me, but above all I let myself be guided by intuition for the main scenes which were not necessarily documented. There is no documentation on intimacy and feelings. Only intuition”. Did this mixture of reality and fiction please those close to the former minister?
Is the film 100% inspired by the real life of Simone Veil?
Elsa Zylberstein and Rebecca Marder really enjoyed playing Simone Veil at different stages of her life. The first, who gained weight to play it, evokes things “crazy, dizzying, immeasurable” and adds: “She helped me live, I tried to feel her as fully and deeply as possible. It’s a great honor and a dream that came true!” The second says: “This woman came down from the heavens! Her life, her fight, her faith in humanity propel you! Beyond this joy, I was aware that playing someone who existed is always delicate, so much so that I I immediately threw myself into work.” Both shared a great experience in the shoes of this feminist icon, to whom we owe in particular a law in favor of abortion, which bears her name. Rebecca Marder says, in the press kit for the film, that the “Intimate scenes as well as collective scenes were fantastically well written and dialogued. They were faithful to reality”. But were they really so realistic? According to, Le Figaro “Simone’s two sons, Jean and Pierre-François, who reread the script, saw the film several times, and were shocked”. As for the Parisian, in October 2022, he reveals the opinion of two relatives: Dorothée Guerrin Bardy (private secretary of Simone Veil from 2007 to 2014) and Jean-Paul Davin (parliamentary advisor from 1974 to 1979).
“I found her clothing style, her earrings and her necklaces on screen” : these accuracies from the film about the real Simone Veil
“She loved the cinema, she went there on Saturday afternoons with her sister. But a biopic about her, I don’t know…”says Jean-Paul Davin. “'She would not have liked to see herself imitated, but she would have been flattered because the film respects her ideas, her struggles and reflects this incredible partnership that she formed with her husband', believes Dorothée Guerrin Bardy”which specifies that Elsa Zylberstein had met Simone Veil “repeatedly […] and told him that she dreamed of playing him.”. The secretary and the advisor, like the sons, were very moved to discover the film. They even cried. “'The boss had the same rigor and the same legal language as her character,' comments Jean-Paul Davin. 'I found her clothing style, her earrings and her necklaces on screen, notes the former secretary and the decoration of the Veil's Parisian apartment or their house in Normandy in the film corresponds very well to what I saw in reality'. The cigarettes that Elsa Zylberstein smokes in fiction also did. smile Dorothée: 'Simone Veil smoked cigarette after cigarette, but only in private places,' she confides. […] Noting in passing that, in the feature film, Rebecca Marder pronounces 'mom' when she speaks of her mother, as did the 'boss'.. Even if, according to them, aspects of Simone Veil's personality and story are missing in this film, the former secretary concedes: “This feature film carries essential messages that Simone Veil was very keen on. It is a beautiful and precious object of transmission”.
