The sixth child on France 3: an intense black film carried by a perfect cast (critic)
From a perilous subject – illegal adoption – this first long long borrows with many audacity, the roads of the black thriller. A very good surprise.
Down with four prizes from the Angoulême Festival in 2022, The sixth child Sign the remarkable beginnings of a young filmmaker, Léopold Legrand. This strong film, approaching maternity and adoption through a dark affair, unfortunately did not jostle the crowds when it was released in the cinema, bringing together just under 100,000 indoor spectators. Catch -up session this Monday on France 3 Monday, for its first clear broadcast on French television. Our criticism:
In the first minutes of the film which is offered as yet another French social drama with its well -defined class struggle – on the one hand the bohemian bourgeois, on the other the nomads in trailers -, and its subject “files of the screen” – the clandestine adoption -, we freak out a bit. The exhibition of the characters, it, is immediately enhanced by a perfect casting which plays the game with a perfect mastery (Damien Bonnard and his wild charisma bluff us again). Here we are about rails. Léopold Legrand signs his first feature film here. His film, adapted from the novel to cry from the rivers of Alain Jaspard and multi-printed at the last Angoulême festival, goes rather quickly in work, bothering with psychologizing digressions. It’s a good sign.
As in a film Noir by Ida Lupineo Fifties (we think, in fact, in Bigamie), the film turns into a dark, takes the trails of the chiaroscuro thriller where the world imprisoned in its anxiety, keeps us in respect. A discomfort settles down, the protagonists are stretching, rubbing each other. One of them becomes downright creepy (Sara Giraudeau in his best role). The sufficiently elliptical scenario goes to the essentials and does not seek to install suspense artificially. Always fast and effective in its execution, this sixth child, advances to the end without turning around. A paid audacity which ultimately delivers us from a sententious morality. In short, an excellent surprise.
By Léopold Legrand. With Sara Giraudeau, Benjamin Lavernhe, Judith Chemla … Duration: 1h32. Released September 28, 2022
