Review of the film “The Perfect Lie” by Sylvain Declou

The perfect lie (De grandes esperances) by Sylvain Declou was released, a political drama that sometimes enters the territory of a thriller and eventually comes to an obvious, albeit fair, conclusion: politics cannot be honest by definition. However, the director presents this common truth, having built a rather complex and multi-layered story around it so that it does not seem banal. Tells Yulia Shagelman.

In the original, the picture is called “Great Expectations”, but when viewed, it is not Dickens’s novel of the same name that is recalled, but “Lost Illusions” by Balzac, native to its authors. Here, too, we will talk about ambitions, which, like almost 200 years ago, force poor provincials to gnaw out their place under the sun of success and recognition with their teeth, about youthful ideals that break against the ugly reality of political struggle (modern methods may have become a little more elegant, but their essence has not changed), about the voice of conscience, which one easily manages to drown out, while for others it poisons life and spoils careers. And finally, about how truth and lies become tools to advance this career, turning different sides, twisting beyond recognition and replacing each other until they become indistinguishable.

The embodiment of great hopes – their own, their families and, at least it seems to them, all of France – is an exemplary young couple Madeleine (Rebecca Marder) and Antoine (Benjamin Laverne). Both of them graduated with honors from the university and are now preparing to enter the National School of Administration (ENA) – an elite educational institution that produces politicians, diplomats, lawyers and top managers of the highest rank. Both adhere to leftist views, stand up for a socially responsible state and are confident that they will build it, reforming the current, not so ideal system from within.

Some irony lies in the fact that the characters came to this point from very different initial positions. Madeleine is the daughter of a locksmith (Marc Barbe), who, despite her progressive views, is embarrassed by her simple origin, and she studied on a scholarship received thanks to her own mind and remarkable ability to work. Antoine, as they say, major is the son of a rich dad (Pascal Elso), whose friends are all ministers, senators and deputies, and lovers are preparing for exams at the ENA in his chic villa in Corsica. However, the young man does not notice this irony: when, during another political dispute at dinner, the father points out that his son, who himself received everything from life on a silver platter, talks about the rights of workers under a montrache and risotto with truffles, he is completely seriously replies that “it’s different.”

Despite the fact that the conservative dad gently laughs at the radicalism of youth, Madeleine is accepted by the groom’s family as her own, and their friend, deputy and former Minister of Labor Gabriel (Emmanuelle Berko), whose indecision in this post the girl criticized in her term paper, sees in her and political potential. The couple has a bright future ahead of them both personally and professionally. But all this collapses literally the next day, when a chance meeting on a country road ends in tragedy, and Madeleine and Antoine find themselves tied not only by love and political convictions, but also by a common crime.

This incident brings out the true nature of each one. Antoine just runs away, hiding from the first problem for his father’s money and connections. Madeleine, gritting her teeth, still tries to pass the exams, fails them, but cannot afford the luxury of longing and feeling sorry for herself. Soon she lands on all fours like a cat: Gabriel offers her a job in his office. From now on, her days are filled with organizing meetings, writing speeches, preparing a bill to index wages and supporting the boss in her fight against the incumbent secretary of labor: Madeleine takes it all with the furious tenacity of a man convinced that he is doing the right thing. The film, which beckoned was the promise of a detective, turns into a chronicle of daily political work, consisting mainly of conversations – face-to-face and telephone. But at the same time, he does not lose his nerve: the way Gabriel and Madeleine famously resolve the situation with a strike at the factory, at the same time drowning a political competitor, looks no less tense than a collision on a Corsican road.

In the last third, the picture again takes a turn: that long-standing fatal mistake reminds of itself, again forcing Madeleine to think about what she is ready to go and what to sacrifice for the sake of preserving what has already been achieved and the opportunity to move on, and the audience may reconsider the prevailing opinion about the characters . Attempts to hide behind the correctness of her beliefs no longer work, Madeleine gradually realizes what the audience has already understood – the first step towards the loss of illusions was taken back then, in Corsica – and, it seems, is ready to come to terms with this. After all, when there are a lot of compromises with oneself, high hopes turn into an ideal lie.