LA SYNDICALISTE
★★★
OUT NOW / CERT 15 / 122 MINS
DIRECTOR Jean-Paul Salomé
CAST Isabelle Huppert, Grégory Gadebois, Yvan Attal, Marina Foïs
Isabelle Huppert has been making films for over half a century and audiences have built up such an implicit trust in her that it’s hard to believe that the French legal system would ever doubt her character’s word. Director Jean-Paul Salomé relies heavily on a sense of outrage in recounting the case of Maureen Kearney, the trade unionist and whistleblower whose 2012 rape claim was dismissed as fantasy after she exposed French and Chinese companies planning to exchange nuclear technology. Huppert gives a masterclass in inscrutable intensity, but her stoicism can make her remote. It’s admirably acted, but this indictment of endemic chauvinism across French society lacks the intrigue, grit, and fury to provoke as it should.