Isabelle Huppert, Marina Foïs, Laurent Lafitte… We saw “The Richest Woman in the World”

With "The Richest Woman in the World," Thierry Klifa offers a powerful twist on the Bettencourt-Banier affair. Starring Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte, and Marina Foïs. Impressive

Film after film ("The Family Hero", "The Eyes of His Mother"...), Thierry Klifa tells the story of dysfunctional families. "Family is a constantly renewing perspective. We may come from the same place, but everyone evolves according to their aspirations, their successes, their failures, their sorrows. And we find ourselves at the table on Sunday with our lives," he explains. Anyone who follows the news, even from afar, recognizes the family that inspired him for "The Richest Woman in the World". Liliane Bettencourt and her cosmetics empire, her daughter Françoise Meyers, the photographer François-Marie Banier , no one is mentioned in this very personal variation on a resounding scandal at the turn of the century...

“This story fascinated me as soon as it was made public,” explains the director. “This lonely billionaire, her unloved daughter, this troublemaker who was going to rake in a lot of money… Behind the facts, I thought very early on that there was another truth to be found. And that fiction would allow us to enter where journalists or documentaries could not: beyond the gates of the house. By fictionalizing it, I found in this story the power of a Balzacian novel, a Shakespearean tragedy, and the springs of farce.”

“Fiction would allow us to enter where journalists or documentaries could not go: beyond the gates of the house.”

Thus Marianne Farrère (Isabelle Huppert, imperial), locked in her icy status as a billionaire, dynamites her shackles when she comes into contact with an ambitious fashion photographer, whose insolence and madness literally blow her away from their first meeting. Pierre-Alain Fantin (Laurent Lafitte, exuberant) is a tornado, hungry for pleasure as much as he is greedy for the astronomical endowments lavished by the richest woman in the world.

Facing them, the billionaire's daughter, Frédérique Spieman (Marina Foïs, impeccable), worries about the influence exerted by the flamboyant young man. She suffers to discover her mother, who seems never to have known how to love her, capable of loving another person so deeply. "We are all fascinated by the misfortunes of the ultra-rich," comments Marina Foïs. "Perhaps we find it reassuring to see them drown in feelings they can't manage... It's an extraordinary theatrical mechanism."

In fact, Thierry Klifa's film draws its strength from this theatrical momentum. Enclosed behind closed doors in the luxurious family home, the characters unfold fully. Sometimes to the point of caricature, when flamboyance pushes Laurent Lafitte to the limits of hamming it up. Doors slam like in comedies of manners, tensions heighten like great psychological dramas, revelations and ghosts (the father's old anti-Semitic writings, in particular) follow one another like in a thriller.

Finally, the character of the butler (Raphaël Personnaz, with Delon-like intensity) condenses the electricity of the conflicting emotions that stir this bonfire of vanities.

"The Richest Woman in the World" by Thierry Klifa, starring Isabelle Huppert and Laurent Lafitte. Running time: 2 hours 3 minutes. In theaters October 29.