Maigret y la joven muerta

Maigret doesn't take shortcuts to solve cases. He takes his time and mostly watches and listens. He needs to understand the victim, the suspects and the witnesses to bring out their motivations and their deeds.

In the same way, director Patrice Leconte avoids action scenes, sub-plots, narration twists. His elegant editing, use of zoom and close-ups follow Maigret's eye and make us "enter" the characters. We feel what they feel.

We experiment the magic of cinema and this is what matters, way more than the actual solution of the puzzle. Leconte quotes Hitchcock ("Vertigo" and "Rear Window") and let Depardieu give us an unforgettable performance.

Louise (Clara Antoons) is renting a very expensive dress to attend her friend Jeanine's (Melanie Bernier) engagement party. She is being engaged to Laurent Clermont (Pierre Moure), a party hosted by his mother (Aurore Clement). Louise is not welcome, and is being threatened by Jeanine and Laurent.

The next morning, Louise is found in the streets, dead, stung with a knife. Commissioner Maigret (Gérard Depardieu) is taking over the case. He's not a young man anymore and has just been told by his doctor to drop his favourite pass time thing, smoking his pibe. That really doesn't help how he feels at the moment, he's never hungry, can't sleep, he's in quite a bad mood.

He really doesn't have a clue about the victim, not her name nor her address. Finding a medicine bottle, he finds out where Louise lived. There he meet Jeanine for the first time. She's an actor, and after meeting Louise on a train, she helps her to a place to stay, and a bit of work at the film studio.

Knowing that about Louise, Maigret tries to fit the pieces together, trying to find out more about the life of the murdered girl. He therefore tries to find a girl with just about the same characteristics, that's how he meets Betty (Jade Labeste). She's earning her money through prostitution. She has nowhere to live, but Maigret brings her to the available apartment of Louise's. They somehow forms a kind of friendship, and to solve the case, he luckily gets her help. Coming up with the quite surprising ending.

Maigret has been played by a lot of actors, Rowan Atkinson being the latest with a TV series. Here in 2022 he's being played by Depardieu, who's visibly are getting older. He's bringing a very slow walking Maigret to the streets of Paris. As always he plays very convincingly. But overall the best performance must be Jade Labeste's portrait of Betty. A film worth watching.

From the director of the excellent Monsieur Hire - still one of the best Simenon adaptations - you certainly expect more than this tired, geriatric and rather pedestrian treatment. It's all very dark bluish, with unsteady camera, listless performances and general air of fatigue (it opens with Maigret's visit to the doctor).

It's a pity Lecont and Depardieu couldn't make Maigret sooner, in their better years (the novel was filmed before - much more lively if not particularly excitingly - with Jean Richard in 1973).

If you really want to see a good Maigret in amazing Simenon's stories, have a look on Bruno Cremer acts or Jean Gabin.

Depardieu is a little bit to sleepy and fat (sorry no offence) to really catch our attention.

Maigret's authenticity in every aspect is most remarkable. Expressive visuals of a decay to which dreamers flock. A hulking father too old and worn to save daughters of the city presented with a effortless performance. Though it's origins are infrequent Maigret is a welcoming experienced experience .