The Translators

A thriller set in a bunker in France. The last volume of a best-selling series is to be published. To prevent a leak the publisher devises a method: nine translators of nine languages are shut in the basement of a mansion. The conditions are hard. No telephone, no internet, no way out. Twenty pages are handed out each day and translated there. There is armed security. One day a message reaches the publisher: the first ten pages of the book are on the internet. The sender demands a ransom and sets a deadline. The leak is from inside. But nobody should have been able to contact the outside. From there the film becomes a locked-room puzzle. The publisher questions the translators one by one, the pressure rises and his methods harden. The narrative proceeds in flashbacks and how it was done opens towards the end. The film's second subject is the literary market: the publisher sees the book as a product while the translators are bound to the text, and that difference sits under the narrative throughout. It draws on a real event; a similar basement arrangement was actually set up for the translation of a famous novel. Lambert Wilson, Olga Kurylenko, Alex Lawther, Riccardo Scamarcio and Sidse Babett Knudsen are in the cast. Régis Roinsard directed. An enjoyable choice for anyone who likes puzzle thrillers and narratives in confined space. For a viewer looking for realism, some steps of the plan look too deft.