Léa Seydoux plays a woman who faces a terrible question about her husband and their child.
“Gentle Monster”
⭐⭐⭐Rating: 3 out of 4
This rapt emotional burner embeds us with a family that earns our sympathies despite disturbing charges against certain members of the household. When Munich police detectives show up at the country retreat of the Weiss family to collect the husband’s laptop, cellphone and any type of media storage device on the premises, Phillip (Laurence Ruppm), the man under investigation, seems resigned to the incursion. His wife Lucy (Léa Seydoux), however, demands answers—answers that will not come for some time. More troubling, given the implications, is the fact that the couple’s 9-year-old son Johnny (Malo Blanchet) is asleep in a nearby room during the systematic sweep for evidence. (The structure and overtones are strikingly similar to the recently released “Fjord.”)
Pulling back, Lucy and Phillip are kindred artists and idealists who have moved to country to pursue their creative yens. She’s a small hall performance artist somewhere between Laurie Anderson and Lana Del Rey, who takes, breaks and repurposes love ballads written by men, because while men may write them, she says, they don’t feel them. Phillip a bit of a man-boy, is a meandering documentary filmmaker whose projects are constantly starting and stopping — he also suffers from acute panic attacks. Understandably, they have rippling financial pressures — a point that becomes a pivotal bit of key evidence in getting to the truth in this emotionally taut bending of realities.
Directed by Austrian filmmaker Marie Kreutzer, the film is told from Lucy’s POV and remains hazy for a good part of it. We are clear early on about Phillip’s accusation, though, because at the police station Lucy is directed to the second floor, which in the elevator is marked for child pornography crimes. Lucy, more confused than outraged, refuses to talk to Phillip after he’s freed following an interview and throughout much of the action, the two circle each other but never really engage. Rue, remorse and suspicion are effective wedges. And there’s a big wedding of a family friend, who also happens to be Phillip’s attorney.
Lucy, concerned about her son’s welfare and grappling with her own guilt and culpability, whisks Johnny off to be watched by her judgmental mother (Catherine Deneuve)— but does not inform her of the charges. Lucy also reaches out to the investigating officer, Elsa Kuhn (Jella Haase), to better understand the nature of the levied crimes, but also to plant the seed that anything incriminating on Phillip’s devices might be research for a documentary film. Elsa, who vapes and listens to metal rap when driving to crime sites, coldly informs Lucy that being in possession of underaged images is still a crime no matter (Pete Townsend hit that wall, too). Elsa is also intentionally dismissive and aloof to Lucy’s pleas for more information and how to move forward. It turns out Elsa has her own problems, namely an aging father who routinely gropes and harasses his female caretakers.
In “Gentle Monster” (the title relates to an online handle), Kreutzer isn’t so much interested in the notion of crime and punishment, but more so the state of being in love with someone who may have done something unthinkable. Her film presses hard in exploring how that information is processed, what it’s like to learn you don’t really know someone. (The source for Kreutzer’s film could be the 2023 child pornography case brought against actor Florian Teichtmeister, who starred opposite Vicky Krieps in Kreutzer’s 2022 film “Corsage.”)
The soundtrack comes from songs Lucy has made — waify chanteuse lilts with notes of anger and rage — and it’s impressive to see Seydoux (“Blue is the Warmest Color,” “The Beast”) flip between the piano and glass armonica during performances. It showcases talents most weren’t aware she possessed, and are part of a bigger, highly nuanced and complex emotional journey that is carried off with lived-in conviction. If there’s any drop-off to the film, it’s because Kreutzer tries to shoehorn too much into the tight frame, but everything she asks of Seydoux and the cast (Ruppm surprisingly impresses in the unenviable role), they deliver on with palpable heart and pain.
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