La Syndicaliste
Isabelle Huppert plays the real-life trade union whistleblower Maureen Kearney in a French thriller that fails to realise its potential.
La Syndicaliste tells the story of a real-life Irish woman named Maureen Kearney who became a whistleblower after she had settled in France and married Gilles Hugo (Grégory Gadebois). Kearney, who is played here by Isabelle Huppert, was living in Paris when she became an employee of the French nuclear multinational company Areva teaching English to its employees. It was growing concern over the way in which the staff were being treated by Areva that encouraged her to become an ardent trade unionist (that role giving this film by Jean-Paul Salomé its title). In that capacity Kearney came across evidence of the existence of a secret contract that linked both Areva and the state-owned company EDF with China's General Nuclear Power Corporation and she saw that, if acted on, it would threaten job losses at Areva as well as raising significant issues over the sharing of France’s nuclear technology. She received pointed warnings not to pursue the matter further and then, on the 17th of December 2012, she suffered a violent and abusive attack when in her home – it stopped short of actual rape but was extreme and horrendous.
La Syndicaliste has a pre-credit sequence that begins with that incident revealing what happened but not showing it in detail. Once the film’s title has appeared on screen, the narrative goes back in time to a few months earlier and the story that now unfolds involves several different aspects. If the first half of the film explains how Kearney became a whistleblower, it also portrays the extent to which Areva typified the tendency in the business world to treat women as inferior. Indeed, we see here how a female CEO (Marina Foïs) is ousted and then replaced by a man Luc Oursel (Yves Attal) whose hostility to Maureen Kearney is all too obvious. However, the film takes on a different focus in its second half. We see how the French police not only failed to investigate properly what had happened to Kearney (her assailant has never been identified) but actually accused her of lying. They claimed that she had invented the story of how she had been attacked and she would even be taken to court over this. La Syndicaliste follows through by revealing the persecution that she suffered over a long period of time before eventually showing an absolute determination to clear her name.
This deeply unsettling real-life story contains much that could make for a really good film, but I am not persuaded that Salomé was the most appropriate filmmaker to undertake it. As it happens even the tagline that has been found to promote the film on its poster crystallises the doubts that I have in this respect. To call it "The French Thriller of the Year” surely fails to accord with material that may indeed be tense and troubling but which carries a significance that goes far beyond what one expects of a thriller. The first half of La Syndicaliste does, to be air, play out in an appropriate style, one that reminds us of last year's excellent film She Said, that portrayal of investigative journalists uncovering testimony about Harvey Weinstein. We find here that a couple of scenes echo moments in 1976’s All the President’s Men but that is fitting enough for there too we had a gripping film that one would not choose to designate as a thriller.
In the event the second half of Salomé’s film involves a shift in gear. There’s evidence of that in the music score by Bruno Coulais which now draws closer to what you expect in a thriller and in addition the attack on Kearney is revisited. On occasion one also finds scenes that seem set up to induce an extra touch of menace whether justified or not. But other elements raise questions too. Even if the film’s running time is rather indulgent, the portrait of Kearney’s husband feels inadequately filled out. More seriously Kearney herself comes across as such a commanding figure that the way in which she eventually yields to the pressure put on her to admit to lying feels less than readily believable. Later on, we do learn of earlier events in her life that help to explain this, but it is a misjudgment in the narrative not to disclose this earlier.
Isabelle Huppert’s presence is surely the film’s strongest selling point but I have mixed feelings about it. The role of Maureen Kearney is an uncharacteristic role for her, but that illustrates her willingness to accept a challenge and she is far too good an actress not to give a good performance in this role. Furthermore, it is striking to see how closely the blonde hair and dark-framed glasses make her resemble what Kearney looked like, that being in contrast to the decision (probably wise) not to give her any hint of an Irish accent. However, I do feel that part of the pleasure of watching great screen actors involves an appreciation of the characterisation that is accompanied by a simultaneous awareness of the actor playing the role. In this case the viewer knows that Huppert is considerably older than the character she is playing and, however cleverly she is made to look right, we know that this image has been fabricated. For me that creates a gap that we can’t quite forget and which keeps us somewhat distant observers.
La Syndicaliste is certainly not a bad movie and it will doubtless hold most audiences. Even so, I was left with the conviction that the material could so easily have been the basis of a better-judged, deeper and more perceptive film.
Also known as: The Sitting Duck.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Grégory Gadebois, Yves Attal, Marina Foïs, François-Xavier Demaison, Pierre Deladonchamps, Aloïse Sauvage, Alexandra Maria Lara, Gilles Cohen, Mara Taquin, Anne-Lise Kedvès.
Dir Jean-Paul Salomé, Pro Bertrand Faivre, Screenplay Jean-Paul Salomé and Fadette Drouard based on the book by Caroline Michel-Aguirre, Ph Julien Hirsch, Pro Des Françoise Dupertuis, Ed Valérie Deseine and Aïn Varet, Music Bruno Coulais, Costumes Marité Coutard.
Heimatfilm/Le Bureau/France 2 Cinéma/Les Films Camélia/Restons Groupés Production-Modern Films.
122 mins. France/Germany. 2022. UK Rel: 30 June 2023. Cert. 15.
