Pas de scandale (1999)
Directed by Benoît Jacquot

Film Review

In common with many of Benoit Jacquot's films, Pas de scandale is an intensely sombre character study centred around one person experiencing a mid-life crisis.  This time, his subject is a company executive who is attempting to rebuild his life after serving a prison sentence which has destroyed not just his public reputation but his self confidence.

The film is to some extent successful in portraying the impact of a prison sentence on someone who previously enjoyed the privilege of wealth and public esteem. Fabrice Luchini would seem to be an unlikely choice for this role, but he is actually very well cast, and his uncharacteristically withdrawn, subtle performance is probably the main reason for watching the film.

Unfortunately, apart from Luchini's performance, the film is something of a disappointment.  Not only does it feel contrived and artificial, lacking warmth and humanity, but the plot relies far too heavily on unlikely coincidences and unconvincing developments.   The film lacks the poignant realism and focus of Jacquot's earlier triumphs, failing to engage the audience,  even when the director has such stars as Isabelle Huppert and Vincent Lindon at his disposal.

Film Synopsis

Grégoire Jeancourt is a company director who has just come out of prison after completing a four month sentence for fraud.  When his wife Agnès meets him in a café she is struck by how much he has changed in so short a time.  She finds it hard to engage him in conversation and there appears to be an unbridgeable gulf between them.  His brother Louis, a talk show host, is equally concerned and, thinking it may help him to regain his confidence, he invites Grégoire to take part in a television interview.  It is a futile gesture as the once outgoing businessman now seems to have nothing to say.  Returning to his apartment, he takes up residence in an unused room and makes it clear to his wife that he still loves and needs her, even if he struggles to express his true feelings.

The most noticeable change in Grégoire's behaviour is how he relates to other people.  He seems to have nothing but contempt for his own class.  In fact, the only people he has any sympathy for are those he hardly noticed before he went to prison - people like Stéphanie, his wife's hairdresser.  For some reason, Grégoire finds it easy to talk to this woman, with whom he has nothing in common - except the fact that her boyfriend William has just completed a prison stretch.  In fact, the two men met in prison and Grégoire is surprised to see William in a café on the very day he goes back to work.  Relations between Louis and his brother have always been difficult since their father favoured Grégoire in his will, but they become even more strained when, during a dinner party to celebrate their mother's birthday, Louis drops his bombshell...