Tom McCarthy won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for
Spotlight (2015), which also won Best Picture. The film was a docudrama that detailed journalists exposing a horrendous crime. This film seemed like it might be something akin to that, but it's not. It's not a docudrama. It's not telling a true story. It's doing what is essentially the cinematic equivalent to what
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit does. It took a story from the news headlines and twists it into something with creative turns. Yes, a lot of dramatic license is taken here. That dramatic license has offended the real-life person who seemed to be the inspiration or the subject of the news headlines that McCarthy is aping. That subject is Amanda Knox who has spoken out against the film.
McCarthy does keep the core case but he changes a lot of the details that it's clear that he's not trying to tell Knox's story. This is not him trying to tell the truth of what happened to her. This is him riffing on that story and on what was the core case. One can take issue with that, but, again, it happens every week on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and that show has been on the air for decades. What's also clear is that McCarthy isn't really interested in the core case, as it's just an excuse to tell another story, one about a man trying to start over or start a new life, but being dragged down by his old one. Given that, one could argue that he didn't need to fudge the facts or take the liberties that he does.
Matt Damon (
The Martian and
The Bourne Identity) stars as Bill Baker, a roughneck or a hard laborer who mainly works on oil rigs. He's from Oklahoma. He's an alcoholic who seems to have been sober for some time now. He was arrested and he's since worked odd jobs, but he hopes to go back to working for an oil rig. He has one daughter who was in college. However, she's since spent the past five years in a French prison, having been convicted of murdering her roommate and female lover. Bill has now dedicated himself to going to France and fighting to prove his daughter's innocence. However, when he hits a brick wall, he's forced to start his life over in France, taking on a new family. The question is if he can hold onto this new family or if the issues with his previous family will ruin it.
Camille Cottin (Call My Agent! and Killing Eve) co-stars as Virginie, a French actress who lives in Marseilles and befriends Bill. Virginie has a daughter whom Bill helps, so this prompts Virginie to talk to Bill and try to help him. Virginie is bilingual, so she first helps Bill translate French. Eventually, they grow closer and it's with her and her daughter that Bill is able to form this second family. The majority of the film becomes Bill living his life with Virginie. It also becomes about this American redneck, as it were, adjusting to the different culture in France, clashing at some points and acclimating at others.
When the film is about that culture clash, it's compelling. For example, there is a scene where one of Virginie's friends asks Bill if he voted for Trump. There's also a moment where Bill is more open to talking to a guy who is clearly racist when Virginie is instead highly offended. Those moments make this film more interesting. When the film swerves back to being a kind of thriller and murder mystery, that's when it loses me. Other than being the reason that brings Bill to France, I'm not sure what purpose it serves. Maybe it's supposed to represent a dark aspect to Bill that makes him incapable of being with Virginie and her daughter, but I don't think the film sells that well enough. The ending therefore felt a bit hollow.
Rated R for language.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 20 mins.
In theaters.
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