The Unknown Girl (2016)

A female doctor gets obsessed with the case of a dead woman after learning that the woman had died shortly after having rung her door for help.

Directors:

Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

Writers:

Jean-Pierre Dardenne (screenplay), Luc Dardenne (screenplay)

Stars:

Adèle Haenel, Olivier Bonnaud, Jérémie Renier

2 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Adèle Haenel	...	Jenny Davin
Olivier Bonnaud	...	Julien
Jérémie Renier	...	Le père de Bryan
Louka Minnella	...	Bryan
Christelle Cornil	...	La mère de Bryan
Nadège Ouedraogo	...	La caissière du cybercafé
Olivier Gourmet	...	Le fils Lambert
Pierre Sumkay	...	Le père Lambert
Yves Larec	...	Le docteur Habran
Ben Hamidou	...	L'inspecteur Ben Mahmoud
Laurent Caron	...	L'inspecteur Bercaro
Fabrizio Rongione	...	Le docteur Riga
Jean-Michel Balthazar	...	Le patient diabétique
Thomas Doret	...	Lucas
Marc Zinga	...	Le proxénète

Storyline

The efficient Dr. Jenny Davin works hard and has been chosen to replace Dr. Habran, who has just retired, at the Kennedy Hospital. One night, someone rings the bell of her office after-hours and Dr. Davin asks her trainee Julien to not open the door since does not to seem an emergency. On the next morning, Police Inspectors Ben Mahmoud and Bercaro require her surveillance tape since a teenager was found dead on the other side of the road and they are investigating what happened. Jenny feels guilty for not opening the door and becomes obsessed to find the teenager's identity. Her investigation affects her relationship with patients that might know something about the unknown girl.

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Plot Keywords:

medical examination | strong female lead | female doctor | doctor patient relationship | strong female character | 

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Taglines:

Masterful... A Deft, Meticulous Moral Drama.

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [Japan] Official site [UK]

Country:

Belgium France

Language:

French

Release Date:

25 August 2017 (USA)

Also Known As:

La chica sin nombre

Filming Locations:

Belgium

Box Office

Gross USA:

$150,549, 2 November 2017

Company Credits

Production Co:

Les Films du Fleuve, Archipel 35, Savage Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

113 min 106 min (re-edit)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The Dardenne brothers re-edited The Unknown Girl (2016) post-Cannes. They had originally planed to make some very minor changes but, after consultation with their editor, decided to make more extensive cuts. They made an additional 32 new edits to the film, which is now 7 minutes shorter than its original Cannes version. The new version will be unveiled at the Institute Lumiere in Lyon in June 2016 as part of a retrospective of the Dardenne brothers' films organized by Thierry Frémaux.

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Quotes

Julien: When I saw that kid having his fit, shaking all over... I saw myself when my dad hit me. All I got from him was beatings. I wanted to be a doctor to treat him or to treat myself, I don't know. Or to be a better doctor than ours who thought I bruised myself playing.

User Reviews

About moral character, accountability, and spiritual redemption

While The Unknown Girl, the latest film by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne ("Two Days, One Night"), is suggestive of social and political issues such as immigration, unemployment, and economic imbalance, its main concern is with moral character, accountability, and spiritual redemption. Like many other films of the Dardenne Brothers, it is simple, natural, and direct, without using a musical background or resorting to sentimentality. Consistent with recent exceptional performances from established actresses such as Cecile de France in The Kid With a Bike and Marion Cotillard in Two Days, One Night, Adele Haenel ("Love at First Flight") is transfixing as Dr. Jenny Davin, a young general practitioner in Saraing, Belgium whose quiet strength, professionalism, and fierce determination dominate the film and make it a worthy addition to the two-time Palme d'Or winners' oeuvre.

Shot by cinematographer Alain Marcoen ("Two Days, One Night"), the film begins at a small clinic where Jenny has been filling in for the retiring Dr. Habran (Yves Larec) but must soon decide whether to accept a more lucrative position out of town. When a young boy has convulsions, Jenny deal with it promptly but later calls out her intern,, Julien (Olivier Bonnaud) for letting his emotions get the better of him, a dressing down that causes him to rethink whether or not he wants to be a doctor, though she later confesses to him that she was being high-handed. Her next admonition to Julien, however, has much more serious consequences.

When they hear an after-hours buzzing on the intercom, she instructs him to ignore it, telling the young intern that he cannot let patients rule him. When a young African woman is found dead on the opposite side of the freeway by the river Meuse, however, Jenny is riddled with guilt. It is soon clear that the deceased woman was the same person who knocked on their door late at night, yet without any identification papers, discovering her identity and the cause of her death is a challenge which becomes the central focus of the film. Though it deals with a possible criminal investigation, it is less of a "whodunit" than an exploration of the many ways in which people deal with feelings of guilt.

Realizing that if she had answered the ring, the young woman might still be alive, Jenny takes it upon herself to conduct a solo investigation. Hoping to discover the victim's name and find anyone who knew her in order to give her a proper burial, Jenny walks around the town, talking to adults and children who may have seen the woman, showing them her photo and reassuring them that any information they provide will be held in confidence. Though most are in denial and refuse to cooperate, Jenny is able to pick up important signals, especially in an interview with a teenager (Louka Minneli) when his accelerated pulse rate indicates that he may not be telling the truth.

The Unknown Girl is mostly muted with little variation in tone, but there are moments of joy when two young male patients sing a lovely song they wrote for Jenny, and when an elderly woman throws a gift of a panettone out the window into Jenny's waiting arms. It also touches on the spiritual when a man asks Jenny, "Why should I screw up my life if she's already dead?" and Jenny replies, "Because, if she were dead, she wouldn't be on our minds." While a too-neat resolution and a lack of the element of surprise keep the film from being in the top rank of the Dardennes' works, its message that healing can only begin when there is a willingness to communicate and to be responsible for one's actions is as good as any that have been delivered in previous films.