THE INNOCENT
(L’INNOCENT)
Sunday, October 16 – Renoir Theatre – 11:00 am
(Screening ends at 12:45 pm)
FICTION / COMEDY, DRAMA
Presented in Association with:
Wild Bunch International
North American Premiere | France | 2022 | Drama | 100 min | In French with English subtitles
Directed by: Louis Garrel
Written by: Louis Garrel, Tanguy Viel, Naïla Guiget
Produced by: Anne-Dominique Toussaint (Les Films des Tournelles)
Cinematography: Julien Poupard
Film Editing: Pierre Deschamps
Original Score: Grégoire Hetzel
Cast: Roschdy Zem (Michel), Anouk Grinberg (Sylvie), Noémie Merlant (Clémence), Louis Garrel (Abel), Jean-Claude Pautot (Jean-Paul)
International Sales: Wild Bunch International
Louis Garrel is in tip-top form with his zany, quick-witted heist movie, The Innocent. As usual, the director also takes on the role of the film’s protagonist, Abel, a devoted son who is up in arms when his mother decides to marry her soon-to-be ex-con drama student, Michel. Abel may not always have the best judgment, but he’s eager to protect is mom… which, given the movie’s affable, goofy tone, leads to a series of loopy schemes that are bound to go haywire. The film’s sparkling dialogue and inventive screenplay, built around the notion that the art of acting and the art of the con inevitably go hand-in-hand — that acting is essentially lying — provide its top-notch cast with all the ammunition they need to have a veritable field day. It also can’t help but leave the audience in stitches.
The son of post-New Wave filmmaker Philippe Garrel and actress Brigitte Sy, and grandson of actor Maurice Garrel, actor/writer/director Louis Garrel made his on-screen debut in his father’s film Les Baisers de secours (1989), at the age of six. His breakout film as an actor was Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (2002), and he won a César Award for Most Promising Actor for his performance in Philippe Garrel’s Les Amants réguliers (2005). He has 55 acting credits to his name, including Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent (2014), Michel Hazanavicius’s Godard Mon Amour (2017), Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy (2019), Greta Gerwig’s Little Women (2019), Woody Allen’s Rifkin’s Festival (2020), and the fifth season of the Canal+ series The Bureau (2020). Garrel began writing and directing his own shorts in 2008 and his first feature, Two Friends (2015), premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. His second feature, A Faithful Man (2018), which he co-wrote with illustrious screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, won the Prix Louis Delluc, a Best Screenplay Award at San Sebastián, Best Director and Best Film Awards at the Buenos Aires International Film Festival, and the Margot Hielscher Prize in Munich. The Crusade (2021), which he also co-wrote with Carrière, and The Innocent (2022) both premiered in Cannes. The film is presented at The American French Film Festival the same week as its French release.
