By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Serge Bozon
Starring: Adda Senani | Isabelle Huppert | José Garcia | Romain Duris
Original language title: Madame Hude
Country: belgium, france
Year: 2018
Running time: 95
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5338644/reference
Thom says: “As you’d suspect from the title this is yet another take on the supposed-classic Robert Louis Stevenson DR. JECKYLL & MR. HYDE shape-shifting horror novel. With so many examples of previous attempts to capture the essence of the book I found it best to approach it from an entirely different angle; that of seeing it as a vehicle for the greatest living female actor Isabelle Huppert. As any Huppert fan expects, she’s terrific here as the electrified professor Marie Géquil/Madame Hyde. Her class is as vile & mean as the one in the recent SCHOOL’S OUT, & it’s miraculous she makes any progress with them. She teaches Physics and her lack of enthusiasm makes for a dull lesson while constantly being ridiculed. She’s not much liked by her colleagues either included her principal who seems to be channeling Walton Goggins in VICE PRINCIPALS, replete with monochromatic pastel shirt & tie. But one stormy night while doing an experiment at her hideaway greenhouse she’s struck by lightning. When she awakes overnight she becomes a better and more engaging teacher and the scientific theories she propounds to her class begin to fascinate them, especially one disabled student who was once her harshest critic. She even befriends him and gives him special tutoring sessions. But at night she begins sleepwalking, disappearing for hours at night. She also starts to give off a radioactive white-hot presence that can kill when she touches someone. Her relationship with her husband starts to disintegrate, especially after his realization of what she’s become. While the science-fiction line is there the intellectual approach the director takes ends up somewhat distorted. Nothing Bozon has done before was particularly stylish so this was definitely a step up. But he was lucky to get Huppert. 4 cats“