THE STORY – Lucy, a successful pianist, moves with her family from Munich to the countryside to support her partner Philip after he suffers burnout, sacrificing her own career in the process. Elsa, a special investigator, struggles with the responsibility of caring for her father, who suffers from dementia. Both women face the dark truths of the men in their life.
THE CAST – Léa Seydoux, Jella Haase, Laurence Rupp, Nils Strunk & Malo Blanchet
THE TEAM – Marie Kreutzer (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 110 minutes
Upon first glance at writer/director Marie Kreutzer’s narrative work, “Gentle Monster” feels like a distinctly different voice compared to her previous film, “Corsage,” as though two different filmmakers made them. Kreutzer’s “Gentle Monster” is certainly a departure from her lush period piece about a rebellious 19th-century Austrian monarch. However, Kreutzer approaches both stories as subversions of expectation and plays on public perception. She centers these revisits through the perspectives of women who are deciphering who they are, while surrounded by abusive masculinity and a constant weighing of opinions. “Gentle Monster” encourages a review of moments that read as everyday domesticity on the surface but reveal something sinister when examined again. As such, how could you trust anyone? What happens when your foundation collapses beneath you, and you don’t know what to believe anymore? Led by an astounding Léa Seydoux, this unsettling morality drama plays out as an uncomfortably tense thriller.
Lucy (Seydoux) lives in a picturesque Bavarian farmhouse with her husband, Philip (Laurence Rupp), and their young son, Johnny (Malo Blanchet). Lucy wakes up one morning to the presence of police officers, who have a warrant for Philip’s arrest on charges of pedophilia. The matter of guilt is addressed early on with the film’s title appearing over a foreboding scene of Philip’s morning run. Kreutzer immediately sets a precedent for not factoring his character’s perspective into the story. She makes the deft choice to focus on Lucy, whose character’s interiority drives the narrative as we become aware of horrific developments alongside her. Each revelation sets off another hideous gut punch of deceit, and another line of in-depth moral questioning.
The film shows immense care for very challenging subject matter, finding strength in a series of unnerving moments that address the characters’ ethical positions throughout. Lucy is concerned about the severity of Philip’s crimes, which will help her determine how she’ll discuss the investigation with others. In her search for answers, she also feels trapped within herself, unsure of what to believe. It’s not so easy for her to fall out of love with the person she’s been married to and supportive of for years. The early glimpses into their farmhouse stability, leading up to the police officers’ arrival, provide enough context to explain why Lucy cannot simply end her marriage at the drop of a hat. As she tells her mother (Catherine Deneuve in another incredibly brief appearance following “Parallel Tales”), there is no off switch for love.
Léa Seydoux’s powerhouse performance as Lucy is the key through which Kreutzer’s layered story resonates. One of the most fascinating elements Seydoux plays with is the varying shades of uncertainty Lucy feels about herself. She wrestles with disgusting levels of deception, not to mention ongoing critiques around Philip’s crimes, including the excuse that his shared and stored content is research conducted for a documentary. With her character’s world flipped upside down, Seydoux expertly navigates the feeling of overwhelming frustration and uncertainty around which direction to follow next. Her incredible range runs the gamut from expressive facial expressions to masterful buildups of emotional tension.
Additionally, Seydoux receives several opportunities to sing throughout the film, on account that her character is an experimental musician. She’s a pop star who deconstructs songs (notably The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” and Coldplay’s “Yellow”) as a means of addressing how men rarely talk about their feelings. While the musical elements have a clumsy energy and are not quite effectively interspersed into the film, the resonance lies in how Lucy takes the men’s words and questions them. This also serves as a somewhat neat parallel for Inspector Elsa Kühn (Jella Haase), the leading officer on Philip’s case, whose job very much involves turning individuals’ worlds upside down.
Inspector Elsa’s disruption of everything Lucy thought she knew about her husband reveals some of the compelling thematic groundwork Kreutzer lays. Elsa’s storyline may feel complete on its own, but in service of the story, she has a memorable impact in drawing out the film’s themes. For instance, toxic masculinity in the form of everyday housekeeping is communicated clearly through Elsa’s dynamics with her male family members. Moments such as Elsa’s father asking why she made sausages for breakfast, or closing the light on her while she’s still in a room, speak to the quieter moments of abusive behavior and misogyny that Elsa herself may have internalized to a degree. Haase’s meticulous performance brings impressive gravitas to a role that could have been incredibly one-note.
Seydoux’s gut-wrenching performance at the center of “Gentle Monster,” combined with a sensitive approach to horrifying subject matter, makes a tough watch equally compelling. It’s evident that she and Kreutzer work astoundingly well together, as both are committed to challenging us to confront everyday terror and to consider what course of action we would take if we were in Lucy’s shoes. The film serves as a fascinating follow-up and, in some ways, an unexpected thematic parallel to Kreutzer’s “Corsage.” She’s a filmmaker who excels at crafting protagonists who constantly reconstruct how they perceive themselves within a larger picture, encouraging us to do the same.
