Le Consentement (2023)

Le Consentement (2023) known as Consent (2023) in English speaking countries. Vanessa Filho makes Vanessa Springora! In 2018, she shot Gueule d’ange (also based on a book) with Marion Cotillard.

The main trio, Kim Higelin, Jean-Paul Rouve and Laetitia Casta, work quite well together.

Kim Higelin is stunning. She really is an incredible actress who should make a huge contribution to French cinema if she stays with it! Despite her admiration for Barbra Streisand and Louis de Funès, she never planned to become an actress, imagining herself as a lawyer or psychiatrist during her years at school.

Kim is the daughter of Kên Higelin, a French film director, actor and stage director, and the granddaughter of Jacques Higelin, a singer-songwriter and actor. She is also the niece of Arthur H (a French singer-songwriter, musician, painter and illustrator whose music blends jazz, rock and electro) and Izïa Higelin, a French singer-songwriter, musician and actress. What a family of artists!

Kim also starred in the series Plan B, which only had one season, I believe.

Jean-Paul Rouve has played in other films of the Portrait, Biography genre, notably Dalida (2016). He was already unrecognisable in Légitime défense (2010). On the other hand, I have no desire to see a film like Zaï zaï zaï zaï (2020) for example, because I loved the comic book so much that I can’t imagine a transition to film for a second.

Laetitia Casta plays the lost, weak mother who tries to be a good parent, but lacks clarity and her limits are not clearly understood.

Rouve and Casta had already played together in La jeune fille et les loups (2008).

A very small role for Élodie Bouchez, but very nice to have chosen her.

Quite a nice small role for Jean Chevalier.

The more or less true story of a 50-year-old writer who has a romantic and sexual relationship with a young teenage girl. I haven’t seen the major films of the genre, such as Lolita (1997) or L’Amant/The Lover (1992).
However, there is (a) Lolita (Chammah) in this film.

Obviously, Rouve was very brave to play this role. As for Kim, don’t worry: she was 23 when she played this role. Because everything is done to make you fall under her spell… and you end up asking yourself questions, even blaming yourself. And you end up wondering if you’re really quite normal, given that she’s playing the role of a girl who’s only 14 in this film! It’s amazing how young she actually looks.

The film is pretty well constructed, with interesting dialogue. And we’re left wondering ‘Was this predator punished or not?’ He didn’t think he was doing anything wrong, but because he only thought he was bringing pleasure, without finding his dominance and perversity disturbing.

There are moments that are less interesting than others, and it’s not a film I’d want to see again and again. So I’m glad I saw it once and I’m glad the story was written, because you always have to pass on, in one way or another, the traumas you’ve suffered in any field.

The music at the end is as dramatic as can be… before switching to the joyful cries of children in a playground. Then it switches to the sound of water, as if we were facing a lake.

I can see that this French film sold like hotcakes. So it was a great success. Is it deserved? Yes, but it’s not a masterpiece either.