What is Libre, the new Mélanie Laurent, worth on Prime Video?

The director skillfully takes on the cult figure of the robber Bruno Sulak and offers Lucas Bravo his first leading role in a feature film

After the thieves… the thief! After the success of her previous feature film on Netflix and her gang of girls bringing together Isabelle Adjani, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Manon Bresch, Mélanie Laurent returns to Prime video, the platform for another of her successes, The Fools’ Ball. With Freeshe chose to tell the story of Bruno Sulak, a high-flying burglar nicknamed the “Arsène Lupine of jewelry stores” who raged between 1978 and 1984 with media coverage for each of his heists, always carried out without the slightest trace of violence. His new feature film, the eighth since The Adoptees in 2011 certainly has neither the emotional power of a Breathe or a Fools’ Ball nor the enjoyably explosive aspect of Thieves. But, as indicated by the fact that it was not approved by the Sulak family, Libre has nothing of the school biopic, of the Wikipedia entry wisely presented in images. We find there the director’s appetite for cinema but first and foremost her talent for revealing immediately striking young faces (Léa Luce Busato after Joséphine Japy or Manon Bresch) as well as taking more identified talents to the next level. She thus offers her first role as headlining a feature film to Lucas Bravo, the hero ofEmily in Paris which convinces here in a new register, quick to arouse ideas and desires in other filmmakers. In the roles of the robber and his companion, this exciting duo alone justifies the discovery of Free.

By Mélanie Laurent. With Lucas Bravo, Léa Luce Busato, Yvan Attal… Duration 1h49. Available November 1 on Prime Video