I'll make no attempt to hide the fact that i wanted to see this because of it's inimitable star. I have been a fan of Juliettte Binoche evet since I first saw her in Michael Haneke's Hidden maybe ten years ago, it's still one of my all time favourites. Since then I have seen a good number of her performances and she is one of those performers who is always good, often great, and sometimes spectacular. I thought she was probably at her best in The Unbearabke Lightness of Being, Hidden, and Code Unknown. I have often thought Binoche is like a European Meryl Streep, so dependable because she is so natural. She isn't given as much to do in Between Two Worlds as she might have been, but does still have some good moments.
The film follows her as a successful writer who decides to go undercover as a cleaner to get a feel for, and perhaps expose, the intense working conditions that agency cleaning staff have to put up with. This brings her first to a caravan park, and later a ferry. She is required to act poor, and forms bonds with the staff she works with, who have no idea of her true intentions. She isn't necessarily there to decieve anybody, but keeps the truth to herself and needs to seem authentic to get an authentic response and insight. Fate steps in and she is outed coincidentally after a chance meeting with I believe an ex.
At this point the film asks the moral question which has been driving the plot - is it right to lie to the innocent for honourable intentions? The ending doesn't do a very good job of answering it - which I think is probably deliberate, and I appreciate a story like this being left open ended for us to make up our own minds, but I didn't like how they went about staying neutral. I found it a but heavy handed, it seems most of her colleagues had totally forgiven her and were very happy for her, even happily buying the books for her to sign, but the two she was closest to still felt entirely wronged - perhaps rightly so. It meant the ending was about her colleagues' reactions to her actions, not her own feelings about them, which isn't the right move for me and left a slightly empty feeling regarding the message.
As always, a film is rarely a waste of time, and this one, although i didn't love it, was still in my head all day today, the most important thing a film can do.
The next film on the list is Nitram, starring Caleb Landry Jones, who is a wonderful, often menacing screen presence, I have said in the past that he could be the next Joaquin Phoenix.
Comments