IN THE NAME OF MY DAUGHTER

Cinema

Catherine Deneuve, Guillaume Canet and Adèle Haenel, a brilliant trio of French actors, directed by André Téchiné to recount a tragic story that made the news in France for more than 3 decades!

When the movie was released in France last summer, it was just a couple of months after the last of a long series of trials that took place between 1983 and 2004.

Here is the story, not that briefly... because actually this story has known so many unexpected and unpredictable sudden developments.

1976. When her marriage falls apart, Agnes Le Roux (ADÈLE HAENEL) moves back to the South of France from Africa to live with her mother, Renee (CATHERINE DENEUVE), owner of the Palais de La Mediterranee casino in Nice. There, Agnes falls in love with Maurice Agnelet (GUILLAUME CANET), a lawyer and Renee’s business advisor, who is ten years her senior. Maurice continues to have relationships with other women. Agnes is madly in love with him. As a shareholder in the Palais de la Mediterannee casino, Agnes decides to sell what should have been her inheritance to go it alone. A fixed card game threatens the casino’s financial stability. Someone is trying to intimidate her mother. Behind the scenes hangs the shadow of the mafia and Fratoni, the owner of a rival casino, who wants to take over the Palais de la Mediterannee. Agnelet, who has fallen from grace with Renee, introduces Agnes to Fratoni. Fratoni offers her 3 million francs to vote against her mother in the shareholder’s meeting. Agnes accepts the offer. Renee loses control of the casino. Agnes finds it hard to cope with her betrayal. Maurice also distances himself from her. In November 1977, after a failed suicide attempt, Agnes disappears. Her body is never found. Thirty years on, Maurice Agnelet remains the prime suspect in a murder case with no body and no proof of his guilt. Convinced of his involvement, Renee is prepared to fight to the bitter end to see him put behind bars…

Maurice Agnelet is the center piece of the story. André Téchiné does not weigh him down (while he could, considering how horrible, so shamelessly unscrupulous he happens to be) but does not spare him with anything. Guillaume Canet embodies this dark character and gives an amazing performance from the young ambitious lawyer to the remorseless old man.

Adèle Haenel, as Agnès le Roux is nothing but overwhelming. (She received the Cesar as best actress for her performance in the movie Love at first fight.) She is inhabited by a raw brutality, a gnawing violence that coexist with such a vulnerable fragility.

And Catherine Deneuve... simply outstanding! Which is not always true, even though... She is one of André Téchiné favorite actresses and performed in seven of his movies. She is magnificent from the start as well as a powerful business woman as a sad, old woman, but still fighting to avenge her daughter's death.

There is just one thing you should know. The English title is all about Catherine Deneuve. But the true translation of the French title would be: The man that was loved too much! Just to let you know that André Téchiné really made the decision to center his movie on Maurice Agnelet and highlight the passions he triggered and not solely follow and report the fight of a mother.