A very poignant movie with a harsh subject and a claustrophobic setting. For me it was a riveting experience. Most of the film is deployed against the background of a French police station of the province. The gist of the story is communicated by the interaction between the two female leads, Sophie Marceau, the guilty woman that after ten years of the facts, comes to denounce herself for the assassination of her abusive husband, and Miou-Miou, the old hand and weary lieutenant of police that, due to her bad luck, was on duty filling the night shift. At first, I was very doubtful about seeing this kind of film. I hate to spend time watching appalling crimes in the news media . Lately one of the most commons is that of beat up women, poor human beings that has to endure a very hell in earth, trapped in the intimacy of a relationship that went very wrong. But cinema is art and in my opinion, Jean-Paul Lilienfeld, the director and the script writer of the film, was very skillful in the way that he presented the flashback scenes, those that show us the awful violence that the character of Sophie Marceau must suffer. If he would used a more graphical approach, the emotional charge of the viewer would be impossible to bear and the taste of the entire film would be put in doubt. But the technical approach was impeccable, and the spectator empathizes with the protagonist without loosing her/his mind and the attention to the plot. And of course, kudos for the leading ladies. Sophie Marceau, the guilty one, and also the victim, was right in the money all the time. A great piece of acting in a long and solid career beginning at the age of thirteen in the successful film La Boum. And Miou-Miou, another wonderful trouper of the French cinema with 89 titles under her belt, was a perfect unmovable object for the irresistible force of the stubborn Sophie Marceau. It's a clash of two strongly determined women, that in the end, learn to respect each other. In conclusion, an stirring story of a very much mistreated woman, seeking to put an end to her suffering that it has not ceased with the death of her nasty husband, and of a very cynical and weary police officer that learned something about herself in the process.
