Is the character of Nora invented?

“Fascinated by this strange affair, I attended the two trials of Jacques Viguier. And on the benches of the Assize Court I met the children of Jacques and Suzy, who were constructed in this terrible equation: 'Mom is missing and Dad is accused of killing her.' In the press kit ofAn intimate convictionbroadcast Monday January 6, 2025, director Antoine Raimbault confides in his morbid enthusiasm for this affair which hit the headlines in the early 2000s. His objective: “Tell this very unique trial. Show justice as closely as possible. Show the assize court today. Render its complexity and try to grasp its dramatic power”. To do this, he chose to respect “scrupulously what was said at the hearings and in the telephone tapping”. Everything is real, with one exception…

A true story behind the film An intimate conviction

Car An intimate convictionit is the true story of the disappearance of Suzanne Viguier and the trial of her husband for her alleged murder, but also that of Nora, a juror at the trial. Convinced of the innocence of the accused, she will do everything possible to exonerate him, going so far as to call on Maître Éric Dupond-Moretti to defend him. “By entering Nora's point of view, during her counter-investigation, the spectators will embrace her conviction, before realizing that she has no more proof than Viguier's accusers. Basically what the film is that the quest for truth can drive one crazy and that we can all fall apart. Nora embodies as much a fantasy of a vigilante figure as an introspective reflection on the danger of our certainties.explains the director of the film in the press kit. The character of Nora therefore does not exist in real life. Nora is us, the different spectators and actors in a criminal affair, who fervently form a conviction.

How was the character of Nora, played by Marina Foïs, born?

But to create his character, played by Marina Foïs, Antoine Raimbault was still inspired by a very real person. “I had the decisive meeting of Emilie, a young woman who is not in the film but who enormously nourished the character of Nora. She was the companion of Jacques Viguier after the disappearance of his wife. She is twenty years old. when she meets him at law school, she dreams of being an investigating judge. Then she goes to visit him in prison, enters the life of this family, stays there for nine years and does some work. this fight against injustice a real priesthood”he says. He will then weave, through Nora, a link between fiction and reality, in order to tell these historical trials without harming the truth or the very existing family of Jacques and Suzanne Viguier. The director, to whom we also owe it A matter of principle (2024), absolutely wanted this character to be a woman, “because at the trial there are only men. Viguier, the lover, the judge, the lawyers… But it is the story of a woman who disappeared. Of her daughter. Of a mother who lost her daughter. And that of Emilie who carried this family for almost ten years. Our central character could only be a woman adrift, who lets go of her son. who often came home late and who was not not always present. I wanted to write and film this quest for truth, hyperactive but which comes up against its powerlessness.