Daniel Auteuil is back in court. For several years now, the actor and director has been moving from one side of the courtroom to the other, sometimes as a civil party(Au nom de ma fille, about the Dieter Krombach case), sometimes as a defendant(L'Adversaire, as Jean-Claude Romand), sometimes as a lawyer(Le Brio) and sometimes as a bit of both(Un Silence). In his new film, Le Fil, presented at last year's Cannes Film Festival and due in cinemas on September 11, 2024, he once again dons the black robe with white bib.
After his various adaptations of Marcel Pagnol's works(La Fille du Puisatier, Marius, Fanny) and Florian Zeller's play L'Envers du décor(Amoureux de ma femme), Auteuil is now adapting a collection of short stories, Au guet-apens : chroniques de la justice pénale ordinaire, written by Lille barrister Jean-Yves Moyart, aka Maître Mô, who became famous on the Internet with his blog 'Petite chronique judiciaire, ordinaire et subjective'.
Auteuil plays Maître Monier, a criminal lawyer whose last trial, the Portal case, was 15 years ago. In that case, he succeeded in acquitting a man who, after his release from prison, went back to killing the elderly. It was enough to put him off ever setting foot in the Draguignan assizes again. But that's exactly what he's going to do, when he agrees to defend Nicolas Milik(Grégory Gadebois), father of five and a poor wretch of his own, accused of murdering his alcoholic wife, whose throat was slit.
A true trial film with thriller overtones, Le Fil unfolds in three stages, moving back and forth between the Milik trial, three years after the fact and scheduled to last three days; the flashbacks that reveal (or not?) the truths that have been told; and thepost-trial period. Initially assigned to Nicolas Milik's defense, the cadet of the bar quickly sets about demonstrating the innocence - of which he is firmly convinced - of this kindly, naive, clumsy-looking man, undeniably acting in good faith. While one clings to the box to keep his head above water, the other is ready to cross the red line to "save" him.
Trial films have made a comeback(Anatomie d'une Chute, Le Procès du Chien, Le Procès Goldman, Les Chambres Rouges), but Auteuil's new film has the added bonus of placing the viewer in the shoes of one of the trial jurors. So, when Auteuil-actor asks them for their innermost conviction, it's really the audience that Auteuil-director is addressing. And it's true that the trial is filmed step by step, providing the keys to forming an informed opinion.
Very well written, the film is captivating in the manner of a fast-paced whodunit - or rather, a... did-he-do-it. As for the flashbacks, they beg the question: illustrative though they are, are they also representative of reality, constitutive of the truth? Le Fil succeeds in calling into question many convictions, starting with the very point of a film that sows doubt about a husband's guilt in his wife's murder, at a time when feminicide is finally beginning to have a name.
But the final (double) twist, which we won't reveal so as not to spoil your stupor, rewrites the work and thus Daniel Auteuil 's initial ambition: Le Fil is a true plea for the victims of violence, whoever they may be.
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