Fred

Fred is an unemployed blue collar worker who gets involved in dirty deeds by his friend and neighbour Michel. The story is narrated in a rather confusing way and without any style or sophistication, as a sort of "realistic" and vaguely sordid documentary.

Fred and his companion Lisa, a separated mother of one, live in an anonymous suburb, the stress being on anonymous. Lisa works as a receptionist in an medical analysis lab and she has a very lusty relationship with Fred. The two are shown several times engaged in sex but never in any meaningful conversation or anything that suggests their relations is more than skin deep passion.

Fred is played by Lindon who has a knack for this type of brutish, ordinary, poorly educated character while Lisa is Courau, a second rate Binoche wannabe. Her Lisa wears no make up and no underwear, and is just a very ordinary woman destined to fall for someone like Fred.

The criminal angle is played very low key, with a couple of believable thugs, just sinister enough to be scary. The police inspector in charge of Fred case is an alcoholic guy who looks like a bum and overestimates wildly his professional skills. There are very few thrills as the plot proceeds mostly following Fred trying to make sense of what is going on and being not too smart. Picks up towards the end, but the end itself is abysmally abrupt.

With a small budget and a very good script, Pierre Jolivet shot a warm and sympathetic thriller. The cast is also very sympathetic, with the always astonishing Vincent Lindon, the beautiful smile of Clotide Courau, the talented Roschdy Zem (a revelation) and one of the best supporting actor in the French contemporary cinema: François Berléand.

Pierre Jolivet is generally considered as a rather minor French director. His work encompasses winners like "Simple Mortel" (1991) or "Filles Uniques" (2003), but also failure like "Strictement Personnel" (1985) or "Force Majeure" (1989). I would classify "Fred" in the first category and it's a palatable thriller deeply rooted in the social, economical tendencies of the nineties with the closure of factories, workers who are made redundant without any future, hopeful prospects.

Fred (Vincent Lindon) is a former crane driver who was a victim of the closure of his factory. He takes care of the little boy of his girlfriend (Clotilde Courau), does the housework and sometimes goes to the job center but boredom is inescapable. One day, because he accepted to drive a truck for a friend to a warehouse, he's caught up in a vicious spiral that goes beyond him. It's all the more serious as shady men want to eliminate him an the police is on his back.

Apart from some glitches to bridge the scenario that are a little artificial, Pierre Jolivet deftly chose the scenery for his story with these suburbs located at the edge of town and at the threshold of the country which symbolize Fred's exclusion from society. Characters are everything but conventional like this disillusioned cop (François Berléand) who drowns his disgust for a dreary world in alcohol. It doesn't stop a potent delineation for all of them, from the minor characters to Fred himself, a not so lucid hard nut. Social drama and detective film are equally intertwined without the sensation that one of them has more place than the other.

Thriller is a cinematographic genre that isn't very well wielded in contemporary French cinema so you should honor Jolivet's genuine work.