El reflejo de Sibyl

I can't recall seeing a film with so many good and great elements: cinematography, acting, a good deal of great dialogue, that was assembled into such a let down of total experience. It is like observing a kid who is smart, has everything, goes to he best schools -- yet goes nowhere in life.

I don't know where this project went wrong. Was it deep flaws from the beginning and they went ahead without resolving them, or was it some kind of creative fight in post production, perhaps about comedy vs drama as the goal in editing?

I was somewhat skeptical before entering the theater, thinking it would turn out to be another boring film about white people surrendering themselves to hordes of therapists, french woman suffering from romantic distress and so on. However, the writer/director cleverly managed to create a layered portrayal of the protagonist shrink and the world she lives in - blending in her present life, her past, the fiction novel she's writing and the movie her patient stars in. The script is mature, quirky and unpredictable enough to handle these four layers without becoming pointless and confusing. The performances are stellar, especially of Sandra Huller as the temperamental film director.

There is no dearth of past french films handling similar material. Yet somehow this film appears fresh and profusely entertaining.

This film kept me in its grip, and I enjoyed every twist and turn as the plotlines unfolded. The acting was superb and the main characters were complex, compelling and elusive.

I'm quite surprised to see such low ratings, but to each their own! To me, the film's seemingly disparate elements/themes (e.g. Trauma, depression, addiction, grief/loss, desire, deception, vanity, power, exploitation) came together to paint a beautifully absurd portrait of the human condition.

In particular, the film seems to emphasize the ways that we naively cling to earthly vices/pleasures and deceptive/delusional narratives in our fights against feelings of disillusionment, meaninglessness and hopelessness.

It could be a kind of french Mulholland Drive. The materials where there: the affections of the past, the psychological insight, the fiction inside the fiction, fantasies, memories...

A failed writer retakes her old dream to write a beautiful novel, but her lacks of inspiration block her... until she met an actress, who tells her about her troubles. Quickly Sibyl sees a paralelism with her past, about her frustrated love with a man that bring her a passion and then another trauma related with a son they had. Sibyl lost her literal aspirations and her love and in ten years she discovered herself having a life that is safe, with some client as therapist and a husband that gives her estability. But none of these are now valid items to her.

The materials, as I said are good, but by one side the dialogue is too melodramatic, sometimes the scenes turns cartoonish and melodrama doesn't fits very well with the tone of the film, a psychologial drama. The scenes are also too repetitive, once we understand her old past love was very passionate, we don't need three more scenes of kissing and stuff.

By other side, the other characters, aside form Sibyl, doesn't feel with depth, something is missing with all of them.

It's a pity, because the idea is very good. A lost opportunity.

The trailer was classically misleading. I did not expect a pale remake of Providence (1977) directed by Alain Resnais.

In short: 1) Sibyl has a few undisclosed skeletons in the closet and manages them while drinking abusively. 2) Sibyl is a shrink and the border between her private life and her professional life does not exist. 3) Sibyl is a writer and she draws inspiration from her own surroundings. Thus, given these three points, fiction and reality are quickly confused, for Sibyl first and for the audience even more.

Although the actresses Sandra Hüller and Adèle Exarchopoulos are outstanding, this story of a lost woman suffering of emotional distress is globally boring.