Movie Review - In the Name of My Daughter

In the Name of My Daughter **½ (out of 5) (R)
note- more arguable spoilers than usual in this review
Catherine Deneuve is the main attraction in this mostly subtitled drama, loosely based on the facts surrounding a woman’s disappearance from the French Riviera about 30 years ago. Deneuve plays an elegant (of course) widow, trying to run a posh casino with the help of a roguish younger lawyer (Gillaiume Canet). His romantic liaisons include Deneuve’s troubled daughter (Adele Haenel), who is too angry with her mom and too smitten with him for anyone to come out of this swirl of entanglements in good shape. Deneuve becomes overly dependent on Canet in fending off internal challenges to her leadership, and underhanded tactics from outside competitors trying to snatch the business from her. Meanwhile, the affair seemingly means far more to Haenel than to Canet, inflaming tensions among the three. Eventually, Haenel vanishes; Canet is prosecuted for her murder. This film speculates on many aspects of who did or didn’t do what to whom back then, and why, with a bonus of incorporating some recent developments in the case.

Deneuve fans (present company included) may wish she’d been more central to this production, as it careens among her business crises, the lawyer’s various arenas of action, and the daughter’s emotional turmoil. Those who recall the actual events will likely learn nothing new with any sense of certainty. Ultimately, there’s little reason to care about the principals from this set of personifications. Deneuve’s decades of determination to find justice for whatever befell her daughter seems driven at least as much by guilt as by maternal love. Nor is there much to like about the other two in this tale that almost buries the actual murder mystery under the billowing suds of soap operas. (5/22/15)