The Girl with a Bracelet

I usually find with French courtroom dramas a refreshing lack of formality and deference. That's not to say that it's a free for all, but the ebbing and flowing of testimony and barrister intervention seems to me far more likely to facilitate a more accurate verdict. "Lise" (Melissa Guers) has been arraigned on a charge of the murder of her best friend "Flora". She was found stabbed multiple times in a bed they had shared the night before. The prosecutor (Anaïs Demoustier) is alleging that a leaked, intimate, video of "Lise" and their friend "Nathan" (Mikaël Halimi) was the source of the violence but she denies that. As the investigation proceeds, we begin to realise that nothing is simple here. "Lise" turns out to be a sexually active girl and the trial sort of shifts from an evaluation of her guilt and innocence into one of youth, profligacy, morals and behaviour. At that, it's quite provocative and the young Guers delivers well. She portrays the character convincingly, lacking in confidence and emanating quite a genuine sense of bemused bewilderment coupled with a remarkable degree of self-control. It's quite clear that as her parents learn a little more of their daughter's peccadilloes that they, too, have demons to face - and at times you do wonder if her dad "Bruno" (Roschdy Zem) is entirely sure of her innocence. Annie Mercier is also quite effective as the girl's legal counsel presenting a far less confrontational style then the prosecutor and for the bulk of this ninety minutes, we have quite a decent drama that does ask you not just whom you believe, but also - what were you like at that age. The trial itself seems a little weak, but as a vehicle for quite a characterful performance from Guers it's worth watching.

"La Fille au Bracelet" narrates the final phases of a legal process against Lise Bataille, a young teenager accused of murdering her best friend. The director told the story almost like a documentary, and as a person that watched some courtroom recordings of famous cases, I have to say that the movie was realistic and immersed me in the plot. It also explores the relationship between the girl and her parents that need to go through this difficult and long procedure that will consume them, creating tensions between different family members. The psychology of the main character is very well developed, and she was very consistent for the whole length.

I personally think that there were a few scenes that were very boring and were dragged longer than necessary. Even though I was genuinely curious to see how it ended, I think that Stéphane Demoustier and the cast could have done a better job in order to create more tension and keep the audience more engaged. Probably this has to do with the chosen narration style, which wants to emulate as much as possible the reality, however the acting could have been a bit more dramatic and expressive in my humble opinion. If you like European cinema you should definitely give this a shot. It is overall a solid drama with good characters and nice acting.

Firstly contrary to another review, there was *no* goof in presenting photos of the murder scene and the cuts sustained by the victim. Two separate photos were shown to the court: the first was of the murder scene with blood on the sheets and spatter on the wall: the second was what looked like a post-mortem photo showing the position of the cuts. The latter was never presented as having been taken at the scene.

On my impressions of the film, the whole court scene felt very realistic and yet shocking at the same time. How was it that the prosecution was able to inject so much surmise, inuendo and downright personal opinions without being challenged and such statements being struck from the record? Of course this is fiction, but I sincerely hope it does not represent how court cases are conducted in France!

If I speak strongly it's because the acting throughout was excellent, very naturalistic, from Lise through to her family and her lawyer. Not having seen the original film but read that in it the prosecution relies heavily on besmirching the character of the accused, that same tone was very much reflected in this film. I was gripped throughout.

Somewhere among the end titles we are informed that the script by director Stéphane Demoustier has been "librement adapté du scénario original de Acusada écrit par Gonzalo Tobal and Ulises Porra Guardiola." In fact, this film is a remake of Acusada (The Accused) a 2018 Argentine movie.

The subject in both movies is the trial of the post-adolescent daughter of upper middle class parents as the main suspect in the murder of her best friend. The depiction of the trial, however, is different. In Acusada, the point was to show that truly competent/unscrupulous lawyers (generally, only accessible to the rich) can confuse the issues in a criminal trial, using all means at their disposal including the news media. The resulting uncertainty makes a reasonable verdict unlikely, which brings to mind real life examples such as O. J. Simpson's trial. In this movie. however, lawyers' behavior is unimpeachable and not the source of the uncertainty at the end. Another (minor) difference is that in Acusada the verdict is decided by a panel of judges (as customary in Argentina) rather than by a jury as in France and many other countries. Finally, episodes that were creepy in Acusada are toned down here.

This said this movie (remake or not) deserves a viewing. Lisa, the accused, is played to perfection by Melissa Guers. Except for television interviews this is her only acting credit so far and most likely the beginning of a brilliant career. Roschdy Zem and Chiara Mastroianni show their usual excellence as Lisa's parents, and so does Anaïs Demoustier as the prosecuting attorney. Script and direction are smooth and seamless. The differences with Acusada may justify to tell the story a second time.

The French court drama 'La fille au bracelet' (the English title is 'The Girl with a Bracelet') made in 2019 by Stéphane Demoustier starts from a situation that is one of the nightmares of any parent. How do a couple of parents face the fact that their daughter, just out of adolescence, is accused of a horrible crime, the murder of her best friend? Can family, marriage hold? Can parents cope with doubts about their daughter's possible guilt and remorses over the fact that from one point on they can no longer protect her in the face of the justice machine? 'La fille au bracelet' which adapts and relocates an Argentine film (which I have not seen) treats this topic with discretion and sensitivity.

The opening scene of the film looks like a copy of the scene that opens the Romanian film ' Arest' by Andrei Cohn that I saw recently. The scene takes place on a beach, is filmed from afar in one shot. A family spends a quiet afternoon by the sea. The police appear, snatching one of the people from normal life in order to throw her into a completely different reality, in prison. From here on the two films are different. The arrested person is Lise, a 16-year-old teenager ( Melissa Guers), the daughter of a middle-class couple (Roschdy Zem, Chiara Mastroianni). The family's life turns into a Kafka-esque nightmare, being confronted with the girl's pre-trial detention for six months followed by a legal procedure that after two years leads to the trial in which Lise is accused of murder. Most of the film takes place in the courtroom. However, more questions about the morality of the accused seem to be put before the court than evidence to prove guilt. The girl's lack of communication does not help her face the accusator, the judge and the jurors. Is this the natural shock that a teenager torn from normal life and thrown into legal proceedings under a terrible accusation goes through, or maybe it is a proof of guilt? Doubts sneak even into the minds of the parents.

I liked the approach of director Stéphane Demoustier. He films the court scenes as a TV broadcast, a neutral-style justice drama. Even the scenes that take place between the parents, or between the parents, the girl and her brother are devoid of sentimentality and do not give explicit answers to all the questions. Precisely due to the director's objectivity, the spectators, like the jurors of the trial, can form their own opinions. Perhaps the lawyer's plea contains the key to watching the film: how much do we understand, parents and grown-up people, of the problems and feelings of young people, how much do we remember and how much did we forget about how we were at their age? Minimalism also characterises the way actors are directed. Melissa Guers as Lisa makes an exceptional debut which is hopefully the beginning of a formidable career. Roschdy Zem and Chiara Mastroianni are very well cast in the roles of parents, reserved and keeping their troubles inside. Anaïs Demoustier (the director's sister) also appears in this film in a very different role from the one in 'Alice et le maire' in which I liked her enormously. I even wondered while watching what the heroine there would have thought about this prosecutor who seems to be trying to convict a young woman of murder without concrete evidence, practically asking the accused to prove her innocence instead of her, the prosecutor proving the guilt beyond of any doubt, as required by the laws of justice. 'La fille au bracelet' is the kind of movie that is sometimes said to resemble a long episode of a TV series. In this case, however, it is much more, it is a court drama with a story and characters that accompany the viewers long after the screening of the film is over.