19/12/2024 - The surprising French filmmakers Lola Bessis and Ruben Amar sign in the US a tense road movie, full of charm and humour, à la Thelma and Louise

Grace Van Dien and Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson in Silver Star

They had emerged in 2013 at the SXSW festival in Austin with Swim Little Fish Swim [+see also:
trailer
interview: Ruben Amar, Lola Bessis
film profile], a debut feature whose story was anchored in New York and which traveled well on the world festival circuit (notably as far as Rotterdam). The Frenchies Lola Bessis and Ruben Amar clearly have the US and its independent cinema in their veins since they are now back with Silver Star, which travels from Connecticut to Kentucky through Cincinnati in the footsteps of two young women who have not been blessed by fate and are brought together by improbable circumstances in a dynamic, fun and globally very enjoyable road movie unveiled last September in Deauville and projected at the 16th Les Arcs Film Festival (in the Playtime section).

“We met in a bank.” The laconic and impulsive African-American girl Billie (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson), from a military family, has been on parole for a month following an altercation with a policeman which cost her an eye. Forced to follow a reinsertion programme (with mental health tests: “have you ever been excited by violence?”, “Do you have relatives or friends you can rely on?”, “do you regret the actions that led to your imprisonment?”, “have you ever wanted to die?”), she is most of all worried about her parents’ house, which she spies on from afar and which is going to be sold in auction because of her and the expenses for her defense and medical care.

To resolve the situation and gain back her honour in the eyes of her disabled father, a former US army lieutenant decorated with the Silver Star, she decides to rob the bank that has been so troublesome for her family. But she is forced to take a hostage in order to escape and she picks a real winner: the blond and very talkative Franny (Grace Van Dien), a single former drug addict, borderline brainless and heavily pregnant, who just got fired from her job as an aquatic gym teacher and who has just taken off for fear of returning to an institution for delinquents. Thus begins a trip full of tumultuous adventure for the duo, with the money as a goal but also some withheld feelings that are slowly released… 

Travelling across a rather bleak America à la American Honey [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Andrea Arnold
film profile], carried by perfect performances and shot in a nervous handled style, the film traces its path with a lot of rhythm, ideas and energy, like a modern western. A horse in its truck, a very mean dealer, the reenactment of the Camp Wildcat battle (an 1861 episode of the Civil War) where the first black woman to enlist in the American army distinguished herself (crossdressing as a man with the Buffalo Soldiers): the script skilfully combines America’s past and present into a cocktail with high potential for sympathy and humour, riding on the recipe of the antagonist duo. A successful immersion into the American soul for our two French filmmakers, and in the heart of a local independent cinema, heir to Bonnie and Clyde and Thelma and Louise.

Silver Star is produced by French outfits Les Films de la Fusée and Middlemen. Pulsar Content handles international sales.

(Translated from French by Manuela Lazić)