Justine Triet has turned a corner. Already. As soon as the second film. The Battle of Solferino, in his first attempt, was charming, full of good intentions but also a bit foutraque. With VICTORIA, his film becomes more square, or more accurately, without ever losing his enthusiasm, and his ingenuity.
Victoria is a woman overwhelmed, a lawyer and a mom, she tries to reconcile her two roles without ever finding the point of balance allowing him to find happiness. She has friends, but they also do simplify life : her ex-husband uses his or her private life, in his passion for writing and a friend (awesome Melvil Poupaud) stalking her for that she agrees to defend him before the court. Then we must say that Victoria is not always the things assets, especially in its relationship with the other. It is impossible not to draw the cover to it, vampiriser the time to talk about concerns before those of others. As this hilarious scene in the face of a client who passes from the status of victim to a psychologist. Justine Triet draws a heroine desirable who knows how to tease us. It is his charm, that’s why we fall in all almost in love with her. We would like to, we, it is flourishing in Victoria. The look that the director casts on his character is superb, one feels almost an obsession almodovarienne in his way of filming. From the outset, similarities are established between the new heroine and Laetitia (The Battle of Solferino) : two women overwhelmed with work life, pushing them to neglect their children. Both films begin in much the same way moreover – the heroines should manage a hassle of babysitting. What does not change, to be sure, it is the energy of the director.
Under its air of Bridget Jones French, VICTORIA is revealed in a first time a comic film that REALLY works from beginning to end. Trial where you summon animals, plans asses screwed rehearsals and argument as drugs are a sample of the funny situations browsing through the film. But the drama is never far away. If Victoria is struggling to find a balance in his life, Justine Triet arrives there in his film in passing in a snap of the finger to the drama. Everything is dosed with brio the life of Victoria is never all black or all white. Rather, in a space between the two. Between the “it could be worse” and “it could be better”. This malaise that inhabits it, its deep questions about his life choices, the film decides not to treat in the mono-tone but is always balanced with humor. After she suffered a big burn-out, the film does not fit rigidly into the drama, but picks you up with laughter. This does not prevent to be affected. And this is where all the grace of the film.
VICTORIA hits ever rigidly in the drama, but we always recovers, laughing. Click To Tweet
We can throw flowers to the stunning Virginie Efira, here find what looks to be his best role, not omit the rest of the cast with him, including a Vincent Lacoste never ceasing addition to earning the thickness of game. The staging of Justine Triet takes the same time to the weight, it becomes more ample, excluding the camera to the shoulder of his first trial (the two films form a clear diptych on the galley of being a mother, worker, middle-aged) to deploy a realization asked, cut. Unlike the heroine, always in the doing, in reaction to the crap in which she is stuffed like a large. The charm of the film is there anyway, in this life of hardship, between appointments with the psychologist and the visionary. At the end of the film, Victoria confess something to Sam (Vincent Lacoste) and the latter asks her why she didn’t tell him sooner. His response : “je don’t know”. An answer that would fit all of the questions that we could ask him about his life choices. It is simple to detect in this irresistible comedy, the influence of american cinema (one thinks of Crazy Amy, lately). If the facts demonstrate that the cinema, French comic happens only very rarely to digest and adapt the recipe american, VICTORIA succeeds tremendously well.
Published may 13, 2016.
Maxime Bedini
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