Rated 4.2 out of 5, this César-winning film is one of the most powerful works of contemporary French cinema – Actus Ciné

At the start of 2018, a drama with a thriller background created a lot of buzz in theaters. And for good reason, it addresses a sensitive subject that is rarely treated in cinema: domestic violence and the devastation on the people who are its victims.

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The title of this punchy feature film: To the hilt. Directed by Xavier Legrand (to whom we owe the excellent series Tout va bien with Virginie Efira, Nicole Garcia and Sara Giraudeau), the film begins with the divorce of the Besson couple.

For her son of a father whom she accuses of domestic violence, Miriam (brilliantly played by Léa Drucker) requests sole custody. The judge in charge of the case grants shared custody to Antoine (played masterfully by Denis Ménochet) whom she considers violated. Taken hostage between his parents, Julien (Thomas Gioria) will do everything to prevent the worst.

A scenario that is at once powerful, breathtaking and poignant, which results from the short film Avant que de tout perd, directed in 2013 by Xavier Legrand and also brought to the screen by Léa Drucker, Denis Ménochet and Mathilde Auneveux in the role of the eldest of the family.

A film from which we do not emerge unscathed

Rated 4.2 by the national press (including five stars awarded by around ten media outlets), and 4.1 by AlloCiné internet users, To the hilt remains, even today, one of the most powerful works of contemporary French cinema.

It is notably considered to be Léa Drucker's best film (even before Close by Lukas Dhont or Colors of Fire by Clovis Cornillac).

Big favorite for the 2019 Césars with no less than ten nominations, To the hilt won four awards: best editing, best original screenplay, best actress for Léa Drucker and best film.

That's not all, he also received the Silver Lion for best first film and the directing prize at the 2017 Venice Film Festival.

And what makes its strength is its way of breaking the silence on a taboo subject, without shocking consciences, as confided Xavier Legrand : “I didn’t want to talk about it like a news story.”

This is why the director wanted to put the viewer at the center of his feature film: “As in Before you lose everythingI wanted to raise public awareness of this drama by treating it with the weapons of cinema that has always fascinated me, that ofHitchcockd’Haneke or from Chabrola cinema that involves the spectator by playing with their intelligence and their nerves.”

And it’s a real success! From the opening scene to the final sequence, in which fear and madness culminate, this drama grips the guts. To see, review and meditate!

Tonight on France 3 at 9:05 p.m.