21/05/2024 - CANNES 2024: A lawyer struggles to save his client in an overly contrived film by Daniel Auteuil, who also co-stars with Grégory Gadebois

Daniel Auteuil and Grégory Gadebois in An Ordinary Case

"He has no record, no priors, he's neither a credible culprit nor an obvious innocent." There has been no shortage of judicial immersions in French cinema of late (from Saint Omer [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alice Diop
interview: Kayije Kagame
film profile] to The Goldman Case [+see also:
film review
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interview: Cédric Kahn
film profile], and also Conviction [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), it is now Daniel Auteuil’s turn, directing and starring as very determined lawyer, to take on the genre with An Ordinary Case, screened as a special screening in the Official Selection at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. With Grégory Gadebois (in the guise of the accused in a crime), the film boasts two first-rate performers, but is hamstrung by a script built exclusively for its final twists and turns.

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“Give him the photos of his wife and children, so that it hurts him, and leave," "You're doing your dirty work well." Being a defence lawyer isn't always a relaxing job, but Jean Monier (Daniel Auteuil) knows the score and, above all, he's convinced that convicting Nicolas Milik (Grégory Gadebois), accused of murdering his wife, would be a miscarriage of justice. But he didn't seek out this client at all, meeting him by chance (a service rendered during a night shift as a public defender) in February 2017. In fact, he hadn't pleaded before a jury in 15 years (for a reason we'll discover later). But when the trial began in January 2020, the lawyer was sure of his case: “There was no evidence against him, no motive and the material elements were ignored.  So we're going to convict a man for the life of a cotton thread under his fingernail?”

The film methodically dissects the case, going back and forth between the days of the hearings (with their expert reports, testimony, questioning and cross-examination, etc.) and flashbacks to the three years of investigation during which Milik was incarcerated and separated from his five young children, whom he raised almost single-handedly alongside his alcoholic wife. The film revolves around words and sketches a portrait of two solitudes: that of the defendant (“my wife won't be coming back, but my children are all I have left”) and that of his lawyer, working obsessively on his behalf (“you're making it personal,” “I'll do anything to save him - Save him? Who do you think you are? We're just asking you to defend him").

Apart from the fact that the judicial process itself is no different from the many cinematic and televisual avatars that have already been seen and reviewed, the film's main problem is that, in order to give even more force to its surprise double-barrelled resolution (which is, admittedly, excellent), the script deliberately slows down the overall tempo and indulges in a lot of unnecessary filler shots (centred on the movements of the protagonist, the writer-director) that a twirling piano vainly tries to liven up. Proof that a good story (a screenplay by Daniel Auteuil and Steven Mitz) doesn't necessarily make a good film.

An Ordinary Case was produced by Zazi Films and co-produced by France 2 Cinéma, Zinc and Zack Films. It is internationally sold by StudioCanal (which absorbed Orange Studio).

(Translated from French by Margaux Comte)

Photogallery 21/05/2024: Cannes 2024 - An Ordinary Case

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Daniel Auteuil, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Grégory Gadebois, Alice Belaïdi
© 2024 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it