Préjudice

Antoine Cuypers's 2015 film fits inside a single summer evening and a single family dinner. Cédric, in his thirties, still lives with his parents and is largely shut inside his own world. When the news that his sister is pregnant is met with joy at the table, something opposite opens in him: he sets about making everyone accept a wrong he believes has been done to him for years. The film does not hand him a diagnosis and does not spell out where his pain comes from; the ambiguity is deliberate. The scenes between Nathalie Baye and Thomas Blanchard are its strongest ground. Uncomfortable, but not cheaply so.