Isabelle Huppert

It’s summertime, 2021. Isabelle Huppert plays Lioubov, Chekhov’s unforgettably heroine in The Cherry Orchard. In a near theatre, Fabrice Luchini recites Nietzsche. Both actors are premiering at Avignon’s Festival. When they leave backstage to stand out on stage, they are completely transformed. As everything seems utterly natural, audience does not imagine what happened before. By following their daily lives during the weeks preceding the premieres, Benoît Jacquot brings a singular perspective of the two actors and shows them like we’ve never seen before.Read More »

A troubled mother’s spirit crumbles when her adult children strike out for independence. Feeling abandoned she contemplates taking drastic action.Read More »

In a small presbytery in Yorkshire, living under the watchful eyes of their aunt and father, a strict Anglican pastor, the Bronte sisters write their first works and quickly become literary sensations.Read More »

Jean-Louis Trintignant’s sinister yet subtle performance as a man who gives the most insane proof of love to his wife enlivens this adaptation of the novel Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith. In public, Vic Allen (Trintignant) puts up with his wife Mélanie’s (Isabelle Huppert) amorous games, showing an outward attitude of acceptance. However, he scares away one of her prospective lovers by telling the poor guy that he killed one of his predecessors. In fact, he did not, and soon the actual perpetrator is found. Later, when Vic feels that Mélanie is becoming too seriously involved, he actually resorts to murders. Despite her ever-increasing suspicion, Mélanie finds it impossible to prove his guilt.Read More »

Late 17th Century: Anne de Grandcamp and Lucie de Fontenelle, two little girls from Normandy, arrive at the Saint-Cyr school founded by Madame de Maintenon for educating the daughters of impoverished nobles ruined in wars and making them into free women. Madame de Maintenon is the secret wife of Louis XIV, and empowered by his support, she offers “her” two hundred fifty girls a playful and avant-garde education. Anne and Lucie, two inseparable friends, allow themselves to be carried away by the promise of a bright future. But Maintenon has arrived at the pinnacle of power through scheming and debasing herself and she now fears the fires of hell. She is counting on her model school to atone for her past sins.Read More »

This is 1920: Sophia and Trofim Ivanytch have been living on Vassilievski Island, which is part of Petrograd, for thirteen years. In their house, which looks like a ship wreck, the atmosphere is gloomy. Sophia cannot have children and she is aware that, because of that, she is likely to lose her husband. That is why, when their neighbor dies, she asks Trofim to take in Ganka, his orphaned thirteen-year-old daughter. Trofim agrees and their new life begins…Read More »

A mature lady approaches a young actor and offers him a great amount of money to get acquainted with her lonely daughter, who suffers of an incurable illness. Eventually a true romance emerges, as mother has secret feelings for the man, while he truly falls in love with the daughter. After the expected death of the daughter, the man leaves in grief rejecting the money, and the mature woman stays in deep loneliness, trying to cope with a double loss.Read More »

In this comedy-drama from Claude Chabrol, Magistrate Jeanne Charmant-Killman (Isabelle Huppert) doggedly investigates CEO Michel Humeau (François Berléand), who is accused of participating in massive corporate malfeasance. As her investigation leads her into the upper echelons of government, Jeanne becomes intoxicated by the power she is amassing. Though she faces threats by those whom she would see brought low and by the dissolution of her personal life and marriage, she will not relent.Read More »

Synopsis:

‘After an informer of Algerian origin is killed in Villeneuve, a nondescript little town in northern France, two senior police officers, Esther Lafarge and Sally Marinelli, are sent to investigate. Right from the start, Esther and Sally fail to hit it off with Robert Mendès, the detective who was the dead man’s police contact and whose cack-handed attempts to build bridges with the town’s immigrant community are as subtle as they are effective. Esther’s addiction to casual violence not only assists in her day job, it also adds spice to her love life, although the cuts and grazes she sustains in her off-duty hours are apt to be misinterpreted. Sally, by contrast, is a timid soul who, despite her admiration for Esther, has an aversion to any kind of physical contact. Read More »