La Volante (2015)
Directed by Christophe Ali, Nicolas Bonilauri

Film Review

Revenge is a dish best served cold.  Directors Christophe Ali and Nicolas Bonilauri take this old adage a little too literally with their psychological thriller La Volante, in which a terrifyingly unhinged Nathalie Baye goes on a calculated killing spree almost ten years after losing her beloved son in a road accident.  Ali and Bonilauri have a penchant for far-fetched scenarios, witnessed by their previous two films Le Rat (2001) and Camping sauvage (2005), but their third feature strains credulity to breaking point and is all the more enjoyable for doing so.  It may not have been intended as such, but La Volante ends up as a gloriously over-the-top black comedy, with Nathalie Baye positively revelling in the part of a sly granny version of Norman Bates, who might well be the reincarnation of Elizabeth Báthory and Niccolò Machiavelli combined.

The astute will notice some similarities with Safy Nebbou's L'Empreinte (2004), a similar kind of cuckoo-in-the-nest thriller which shares the central plot device of a mother resorting to extreme measures to find a son to replace the one who was killed in a road accident.  Nebbou's film benefits from more fully developed characters and a far more believable premise.  By contrast, La Volante is more a case of style over substance, too concerned with its artful baroque visuals, Grand Guignol excesses and recurring Hitchcockian allusions (Psycho, Marnie and Frenzy are none-too-subtly referenced) to bother with a trifling thing like characterisation.  This is ultimately where the film falls down - we end up sympathising with Baye's character not because we share her pain but because every other character in the film is so wet, gormless or weird.  We can hardly wait for Baye to get on with her campaign of carnage and start filleting the faceless non-entities that she has set her mind on destroying.

The ludicrous script is certainly the film's Achilles heel, but in spite of this La Volante manages to be an engaging and rewarding thriller, even if (a) the outcome is apparent as soon as poor unsuspecting Malik Zidi ends up with Baye as his domineering secretary and (b) Baye's attempts to force her way into Zidi's personal life are about as subtle and transparent as America's efforts to force regime change on Iraq in 2003 (albeit with slightly less collateral damage).  Nicolas Massart's photography and some eerily oppressive set design (apparently inspired by Kubrick's The Shining) lend a distinctly creepy atmosphere to the film, which Jérôme Lemonnier's Hitchcockian score services admirably.

However, the film's main saving grace is Nathalie Baye looking surprisingly at ease in the kind of role she has never been given before.  In recent years, cinema has pretty well restricted the actress to playing her usual amiable self, growing old gracefully in good-natured comedies tailored to her personality.  It's as much a treat for her fans as it doubtless was for herself to see her cast so egregiously against type in this quirky thriller, although you wonder how she can possibly top this.  Nathalie Baye is the new bad girl of French cinema - and not before time.  Wouldn't you just love to see her in a French remake of The Anniversary?

Film Synopsis

Thomas is driving his wife to hospital to give birth when he knocks down and kills a young man in the road.  The latter's mother, Marie-France, is unable to get over this tragedy.  Nine years later, she becomes Thomas's personal secretary without him knowing who she is.  In next to no time Marie-France has gained the confidence of Thomas's son Léo and his widowed father Éric, and whilst Marie-France's sudden presence in his life initially disconcerts him, Thomas, a struggling single parent, soon becomes totally dependent on her.  This is exactly what Marie-France had intended.  Now that she has succeeded in inveigling her way into Thomas's life she can put into action her murderous plan of revenge...