Playing Fire: An amazing trio of actors in a very wise film [critique]

A father sees one of his sons drifting towards the far right… The Coulin sisters question the unconditionality of love in an uneven film despite the quality of its interpretation

We left Vincent Lindon as a concreter in The Choicehe reappears again with a construction helmet on his head in Play with fireas a catenary operator working on the Lorraine railways. Still as credible in his favorite job as a man in the street, still as invested in the idea of ​​embodying something that would go beyond the character: undoubtedly France itself, a state of the country and the Republic right now. Adapted from the novel What you need at night by Laurent Petitmangin, the film by the Coulin sisters (17 Girls, See the country) paints the portrait of a widowed father whose two sons, on the cusp of adulthood, are preparing to take different paths: one (Stefan Crepon) will soon leave to study literature at Paris, when the other (Benjamin Voisin) gets closer to far-right groups, even though he grew up in a home where humanist values ​​were always professed. Rather than the causes of the seduction of extremism, the film is interested in the intimate consequences, observing the bonds that become distended, the way in which love (filial, paternal, fraternal) can bend. Until breaking up? The question is asked in the last act, which offers Lindon – winner at Venice – the opportunity for a long monologue, certainly powerful and moving, but which unbalances and cannibalizes the film. Everything above is in place, solid, carefully composed, but also a bit academic, as if Play with fire was petrified by the civic mission he set for himself – and which risks preaching only to the convinced.

By Delphine and Muriel Coulin. With Vincent Lindon, Benjamin Voisin, Stephan Crepon… Duration 1h58. Released January 22, 2025