Dog 51: Cédric Jimenez transforms the novel by Laurent Gaudé into a dystopian thriller

Adapted from Laurent Gaudé’s novel, dog 51 becomes under the camera of Cédric Jimenez a breathtaking futuristic thriller, carried by Gilles Lellouche and Adèle Exarchopoulos.

Originally, there is Laurent Gaudé’s novel, a prize for high school students 2022, which imagined a fractured megalopolis in three social zones, led by an omnipotent multinational. In the book Dog 51we followed Zem, exiled Greek who became a cop in zone 3, a man broken by history and who only survived by plunging back into his memories thanks to a technological drug. Throughout a investigation into a sordid murder, Gaudé rolled out a political fable on inequalities, the climate, the commodification of the world. Playing both the techno thriller’s card, but also political fable and psychological essay.

Cédric Jimenez chose to adapt this dizzying story, but in his own way: keeping the frame – the zones and the duo of cops from opposite worlds – and refocusing everything to summon the efficiency of the thriller. “What was most interested was the relationship between the two characters and this somewhat utopian story in the middle of dystopia”, tells us the director in the last issue of the magazine (on sale next Wednesday). With his co-series Olivier Demangel, he assumes having moved away from the text, to stick to the codes of a pure gender fiction: “A real very generous action thriller for the spectator, who must reside in the pleasure of being hung at his headquarters.”

Result: where Gaudé multiplied eras and digressions, could devote an entire chapter to visions, or embarked in a literally homeric and nostalgic trip, Jimenez decided to bring everything back to a futuristic Paris, “a sort of increased future”, which becomes the playground of a story in real time. The promise is therefore that the dystopian thriller turns into action film. Carried by Gilles Lellouche in tired cop and Adèle Exarchopoulos as a partner of another area, we will see these two characters get closer and repair in a ruined world.

Around them, an All -Star – Romain Duris casting, Louis Garrel, Valeria Bruni -Tedeschi, Artus – which Jimenez assumes as a choice of generosity: “To make people want to move in theaters, it is also necessary to offer them the possibility of finding the actors they love on the screen.” After Northern tank And November,, Dog 51 Appears as the last part of a police trilogy where, says the filmmaker, “my characters are always manhandled by a system that exceeds them”. With his displayed ambition of total spectacle, Jimenez signs what could be his film -sleep: a nervous and popular dystopia, where the question of freedom – or of its abandonment – is addressed via the thriller. An adaptation that does not try to say everything, but to make everything feel, in movement and adrenaline. To confirm this promise it will be necessary to wait until October 15.

Official synopsis: In the near future, Paris has been divided into 3 areas that separate social classes and where artificial intelligence Alma has revolutionized the work of the police. Until its inventor is murdered and Salia and Zem, two police officers that everything opposes, are forced to collaborate to conduct the investigation.

Dog 51 will be released in theaters on October 15