Lost Illusions

A film set in nineteenth-century France. Lucien works at a printing house in the provinces and writes poetry. A noblewoman in the district discovers him; when the affair becomes known both have to go to Paris. In Paris she leaves him. Lucien is left without money and takes a job at a newspaper. From there the film is about the press, and that is its real subject. The papers sell opinion: praise for a book has a price, and so does an attack. Crowds are hired to applaud and to jeer in the theatre. Making an actor famous and finishing one are settled at the same table. Lucien turns out to be good at this. He is known quickly, he earns, and he has no difficulty changing sides. What the narrative is interested in is not talent but the market: the film shows not a young man's corruption but how the system works, and builds it to speak plainly to the media of today. What the ending is will not be written here; Lucien's fall is as much a part of the same machinery as his rise. The source is Balzac's novel, and the adaptation centres the Paris section. Benjamin Voisin plays Lucien. Cécile de France, Vincent Lacoste, Xavier Dolan and Gérard Depardieu are in the cast. Xavier Giannoli directed. The film won a number of Césars in France, including best film. Who it is for: anyone who likes adaptations of classic novels and narratives built on the press. Who it is not for: anyone looking for something short; it runs close to two and a half hours and the voiceover is heavy.