It was eleven years ago. In 2015, director Maïwenn presented My king in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The film, which traces the long and turbulent relationship of control between a woman (Emmanuelle Bercot) and her narcissistic partner (Vincent Cassel), was immediately rejected by a large part of the critics and qualified at the time, in the same way as its female character, as“hysterical”.
It must be said that we still lack words to describe the phenomenon that the film wants to tell: a romantic relationship governed by manipulation and psychological violence, in which the female character struggles to recognize what she is the victim of. Yet, My king will be a pioneering film. Many women then recognize in his images behaviors that they have experienced, extremely widespread but then little understood by the general public; those that we now classify in the category of “toxic relationships”, “narcissistic perverts” or “control relationships”.
“I hope that there is a path of empathy that has been made”
“I think there’s something that’s changed since then. 2017 is still the birth of the #MeToo movement”observes Monia Chokri, who plays the heroine of If you think welldirected by Géraldine Nakache and selected this year in the Cannes Première section. In the film, which adopts a disjointed chronological structure, Gil (Monia Chokri) quickly becomes pregnant by Jacques (Niels Schneider), marries him and gradually sees the noose close on her. He buys them a luxurious house far from the city, tells her to stop working and gradually isolates her.
“I hope that there is a path of empathy that has taken place. Probably more on the side of the male population, because I,My kingthat had still struggled at me, already at the time”estimates Monia Chokri. Since the freedom of speech caused by the #MeToo movement, we have indeed witnessed a multiplication of stories about control and violence within couples.
If the Cannes Film Festival allows us to take the pulse of current concerns, then it would seem that stories of control are finally finding a place in the collective consciousness. After My king in 2015, Red Rocketby Sean Baker (2021), then Love and the forestsby Valérie Donzelli (2023), at least three Cannes films this year depict abusive relationships.
On the Filmmakers’ Fortnight side, we find Shanaby Lila Pinell (in theaters June 17), a surprising story between comedy and thriller, illuminated by the sunny presence of its main actress, Eva Huault. Shana is a young thirty-something Parisian. Obsessed with cosmetic surgery, she is insecure and her blind love for her boyfriend, in prison for drug trafficking, arouses incomprehension from those around her. Her best friend, who tries to support her, however experienced a similar mechanism: “He was different, he was a psychopath, but he had a lot of empathy. When he hit me, he cried.”
“All women are in the same boat”
This tendency to want to defend one’s executioner is found in Kiki, the heroine of Bad star. In this film by Lola Cambourieu and Yann Berlier selected by the ACID (Independent Cinema Association for its distribution), we follow a few days in the life of this tender and generous mother, constantly belittled by her husband. With very long, even trying sequences, where a simple story of braised chicken turns into endless melodrama, the film allows us to realize the physical and mental exhaustion caused by toxic and narcissistic men.
While Bad star rather responds to the aesthetic codes of social film, If you think well by Géraldine Nakache is designed as a psychological thriller, with a narrative structure composed of flashbacks, suffocating close-ups and an anxiety-provoking staging that never releases the tension. If you think well also addresses control through the prism of Judaism: faith will serve as a refuge for the heroine, but also as a tool of coercion for her husband. “I was interested in talking about beliefs, the framework. And I spoke about what I knew, that is to say the Jewish religion.explains Géraldine Nakache.
All these films have a different style and their heroines are neither the same age, nor the same social origin, nor the same economic conditions. However, from film to film, we are struck by the similarities, sometimes word for word, as the situations described follow a recurring and realistic pattern. During her four years of writing with her co-writer David Lambert, Géraldine Nakache met many women who had experienced a similar position. “It was important for me to talk about it, because all these women were systematically telling us about the same process. It’s quite disturbing. It is neither about social level, nor culture, nor religion, nor age. All women are in the same boat.”
If these stories took so long to emerge in the cinema, it is perhaps because their murky mechanisms are difficult to portray. Géraldine Nakache highlights the difficulty of writing the story of a protagonist who does not know that she is under influence. “I was interested in showing this blind spot of deaf violence, which is hidden, often silenced, of which the victims do not really know that they are victims.relates the filmmaker and actress. But as a result, it was complicated to write, because people who are silent, who are behind closed doors, far away from everything, that’s not cinematic.”
“Say that it doesn’t just happen to others”
These stories also make room for heroines with strong personalities and deconstruct the idea that being the victim of an abusive partner would be associated with a certain docility or weakness of character. In Bad starwe first discover Kiki through her passion for combat sports. In a few sequences, we are shown that she has no problem defending herself physically or verbally. Shana, too, is what one might call a “loud mouth,” as shown in the opening of the eponymous film, an anthology-style confusion sequence.
It is precisely for her powerful and haughty presence that Géraldine Nakache chose to cast Monia Chokri. “She has personality, she is independent and then she is someone, Monia. She has a healthy head, she’s not a fragile little thing that flies away with a gust of wind. We often hear two things in these situations: “Ah good, her?” and also “but why didn’t you leave sooner?”. For that reason, in fact. Because she wasn’t really sure if she was a victim of anything.”
“I recognized myself in so many aspects of the role, in my own experience. I didn’t experience it that way, but I did. And I found it interesting that it was said that this happened to all these women.”
This is also why the director wanted to create an active woman character, since Gil works on film sets. “What is important for me, is to say that this doesn’t happen to others, that there are full of so-called independent women who earn their salary, who have the means to pay rent, who have a point of view on life, friends, surrounding family, and who can find themselves in these situations»describes Géraldine Nakache.
Monia Chokri herself admits to being initially surprised by this casting choice: “At first, I said to myself, why me? Because I am not offered this kind of role in general, I am offered rather certain roles. And afterward, I said to myself: “But why not me?” In fact, I recognized myself in so many aspects of the role, in my own experience. I didn’t experience it that way, but I did. And I found it interesting that it was said that this happened to all these women. I would say that often, the stronger women are, the more the meeting with a man like that is going to be destructive.”
For the Quebec actress, playing such a role was a powerful experience. She particularly remembers being very shaken by a spitting scene. “For a slap or a punch, we always pretend to be at the cinema. But for a spit, you can’t pretend. Even though it was in the script, the first time it happened, I was surprisedconfides Monia Chokri. I felt super humiliated, physically and psychologically, I felt like I was 5 years old. Everything was a bit difficult, because the body and mind do not distinguish between the real and the fake. It affected me for the rest of my day, into my weekend. I couldn’t just put my suit away at night and then go to bed, it really affected me. But hey, that was the gamble of the project.” The theatrical release of If you think well is scheduled for September 16, 2026.
