Inspired by the true story of a famous French heiress and businesswoman whose sentimental-slash-financial imbroglios made headlines and ended up in court, The Richest Woman in the World offers its flamboyant stage to a star-studded trio who has great fun in this small theatre of cruelty where the ultra-rich love and hate each other. Thierry Klifa, selected for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival, thus presented his sixth feature out of competition.

The film revolves around an improbable trio looking for love, who’s no longer sure how to give or even receive it. Marianne (Isabelle Huppert) has inherited an industrial empire in cosmetics over which she reigns with a deft hand. She is neither rich, nor very rich, nor even very, very rich – she is simply the richest woman in the world, a kind of neo-divinity out of reach from mere mortals, isolated in her ivory tower. All of her relationships are power relations, and thus based on force, most often consisting in transactions. Her daughter Frédérique (Marina Foïs), raised in opulence, already has everything that her wealth can buy. Vaguely engaged on a path that she hopes to see diverge from her mother’s, all she is missing is the latter’s love. So when Pierre-Alain (Laurent Lafitte), a whimsical photographer and deliciously vulgar prodigal ex-writer who lives his life as though it were a never ending theatre play, arrives on the scene, Marianne sees in him her last chance of emancipation from an existence bolted up by her class and fortune. Her relatives, instead, see him as a small-time crook, who won’t hesitate to strip her of a (necessarily trivial) share of her immense fortune and alienate her from her family if necessary.

It would be risky to try and feel sorry for the fate of the ultra-rich, so Thierry Klifa chooses to laugh about it instead, playfully relying on the satirical register. His characters are bigger than life, naturally, so the filmmaker doesn’t hesitate to dial it all up – the ridicule, the situations, and the art direction. The ultra-rich typically cultivate a certain emotional restraint, but Pierre-Alain’s arrival, like a bull in a china shop, upsets everything. Excess becomes the norm and the filter of etiquette takes a hit. Pierre-Alain preaches unvarnished honesty as a way of life and of dealing with others – except perhaps when it comes to his finances. Frédéric discovers with profound sadness that her mother, who has never seemed to have a hint of maternal instinct, is capable of loving Pierre-Alain like an unruly child, despite his mistakes and faults. Less interested in the psychology of the characters than in the ties that bind them, the film favours irony over empathy, and reminds us, in case it needed reminding, how lonely one can be at the top. Pierre-Alain is the one who’s moving and making others move, putting all these people in action. Laurent Lafitte takes hold of the licence to ham it up offered to him with a certain jubilation and Isabelle Huppert leverages her hyper-actress status to imagine this character of the “richest woman” in all its excess. The Richest Woman in the World is a farce that isn’t so much looking to elucidate the dark side of its protagonists as to invite us to witness the spectacle of the oversize family dramas of the ultra-rich.

The Richest Woman in the World was produced by Récifilms (France) and Versus Productions (Belgium). International sales are handled by Playtime.