O Segredo de Madeleine Collins

Madeleine Collins (2021), directed by Antoine Barraud, is a slow-burning psychological drama centered around Virginie Efira's compelling performance as Madeleine, a woman leading a double life between two families. Efira captures the character's internal struggle with quiet intensity, conveying layers of guilt, deception, and vulnerability through subtle gestures and expressions. Her portrayal of Madeleine's fragmentation is a masterclass in restraint, revealing the weight of her secrets in small, fleeting moments that build to an overwhelming sense of tension.

Director Antoine Barraud uses meticulous craftsmanship to enhance the emotional depth of the film. The deliberate pacing and use of muted colors and soft lighting mirror Madeleine's emotional detachment and the divide between her two worlds. Filmmakers will appreciate how the framing and composition, often placing Madeleine in confined spaces, visually symbolize her entrapment in her own lies. The sound design, featuring ambient noises and strategic silences, further heightens the atmosphere, while mirrors and reflective surfaces serve as a poignant metaphor for the fractured identity of the protagonist.

Beyond Efira's standout performance, Madeleine Collins thrives on the technical choices that deepen its psychological tension. The film's slow pacing and use of visual metaphors like mirrors not only explore Madeleine's fractured sense of self but also immerse the audience in the quiet unease that defines her existence. While the film may appear subdued on the surface, its emotional complexity and the subtlety of its direction make it a rich, thought-provoking experience that will resonate long after the credits roll.

This movie has stayed with me since I saw it. It is great story-telling, masterfully constructed. The story reveals itself gradually - and conceals itself too. Also, it is superbly filmed and acted. It really is a masterclass in how to tell a story, how to put all the elements together in an intelligent and engrossing way. And not to just tell, but to avoid telling. It uses sleight of hand - or sleight of brain - like a magic trick. It makes the whole to be more than the sum of its parts. Saying all that, it is not a movie that is hard to follow. I also love the sound and diction of the French language.

I thought of Tom Ripley desperately trying to keep all his balls in the air, in THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY, of how he almost went nuts trying to play one character off against another--and that was a murder story. Judith/Margot hasn't killed anybody, yet her distress at having to keep up this act is crushing her, and even the viewer a little. The script is either unintentionally vague or deliberately so--I was never able to decide which. We are left with some excellent performances: Quim Gutierrez is outstanding as the extremely frustrated Abdel, never sure of where he stands with 'Margot', and Bruno Salomone as the conductor just drips with self-satisfaction; rarely have I seen a man so unconcerned with being a cuckold. The distress shown by Judith's parents in one amazing scene has to be seen to be appreciated. It's a shame that the story had to be so confusing with performances like these.

I'm a great admirer of Virginie Efira; I've seen a half-dozen or so of her films and she's excellent in both comedy and drama. She's going to have a long career, as Catherine Deneuve has had.

Judith Fauvet (Virginie Efira) is leading a double life. In Switzerland, she and Abdel are raising a little girl. In France, she and Melvil have two teenage boys. The oldest boy suspects something with his absent mother. The situations spiral out of control as she can't control everything.

This is a French psychological thriller. There are some great tension in individual scenes. The police station is tense. The little girl is devastating. Stepping back a bit, one is struck by her self-destructiveness. In a way, it is hard to sympathize with her even as the tension in the movie gets ratchet up.

Bottom line on this is I enjoyed it. I was never sure where it was going and the uncertainty of the viewer contributed to the ongoing tension of the film.

I won't throw out spoilers. The opening scene is puzzling involving the fall of a young woman.

But the story shifts immediately to another similar young woman navigating her way between two families, her maestro husband and her boyfriend. The former with her two sons, the latter with her daughter.

The challenge comes with keeping her stories straight in each household as her job as a translator takes her all over the place (or does it?) The lead does a marvelous job in all the screen time she has and so does the supporting cast with some beautiful scenes.

The little actress who plays her daughter is incredibly good.

The slow denouement of the plot is gripping and the unexpected ending quite satisfying. And the opening scene explained.

8/10 from me.