Mathieu Amalric Movies

The devastating reverberations of a profound tragedy echo through generations of a long-suffering French family in this emotional family drama from director Arnaud Desplechin. When Abel and his wife, Junon, started a family, it seemed like the seeds of true happiness had been planted. But while their daughter, Elizabeth, was healthy from the day she was born, things quickly turned dark when her brother Joseph was diagnosed with a rare and deadly genetic condition. Joseph's only hope for survival was a bone marrow transplant, but Abel, Junon, and Elizabeth were all incompatible. In one last, desperate chance to save their son's life, Abel and Junon conceived a third child. But not even little Henri could save his ailing brother's life. Joseph died at the age of seven, and neither his siblings nor his parents have ever found the strength to recover. Years later, family relations have deteriorated beyond the point of repair; the tensions between family matriarch Elizabeth and her cynical brother Henri finally culminating in a violent confrontation in which Elizabeth banishes her alcoholic brother and refuses him further contact with his troubled adolescent nephew, Paul. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Actress-cum-director Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi's sophomore feature, the comedy-drama Les Actrices (Le reve de la nuit d'avant), follows the trials and travails of Marcelline (Tedeschi), a tense and jittery stage thesp whose personal and professional life threaten to fall into pieces simultaneously. On a personal level, Marcelline hits the midpoint of her life, hears her biological clock ticking, and longs desperately for a child. At work, Marcelline's inability to find the core of her character, Natalia Petrovna, in a production of Turgenev's A Month in the Country only causes her emotional tension to double. In time, she regresses into such a basket case that she can barely respond to the stage director's query about whether she is right or left-handed. Marcelline's natty and overanxious mother (Marisa Borini, Tedeschi's mother in real life) weighs heavily on her as well, pressuring her constantly about the need to find an appropriate suitor before time runs out; instead, Marcelline finds herself drawn helplessly to Eric (Louis Garrel) a sexy young actor in the production - who, without her knowledge, nurtures reciprocal affections. This parallels the events that befall Petrovna in Turgenev's play, and indeed, at one point the spirit of Petrovna (Valeria Golino) appears to Marcelline for much-needed counsel. Meanwhile, as Marcelline weathers her own personal crises, one of her friends, Nathalie (Noemie Lvovsky) - the assistant to the play's director - struggles with her offstage lack of fulfillment as a wife and mother. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

A young man must reconcile his nostalgia for the past with the unfortunate realities of the present in this drama. Shortly after graduating from college, Paul (Mathieu Amalric) receives word from his mother Odette (Michele Gary) that his father (Roger Souza) has been diagnosed with cancer and doesn't have long to live. Paul decides to come home for an extended visit, and while he's happy to become reacquainted with his mom, he has issues with his father and isn't sure how to approach him. After several years away, Paul is shocked at how much the countryside has changed; developers have been buying up property in the area, and suburban subdivisions are replacing the family farms he remembered. Paul renews his friendship with Thierry (Fabrice Cals), who was his best friend as a boy, but he soon finds this is another area where things have changed; Thierry's girlfriend these days is Odile (Lauryl Brossier), who confesses to Paul that she was infatuated with him when they were schoolmates years ago, and while he's quite smitten with her, he doesn't want to betray his friendship with Thierry, who is growing visibly uncomfortable with their casual affection. As Paul must come to terms with his relationship with his father, he also has to face the reality that his father's death will mean the end of the family's farm -- a prospect that bothers Paul more than it does Odette. Amour D'Enfance was screened at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, where it was shown as part of the Un Certain Regard series. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Jews have long played a major role in French culture, but they've also found themselves welcomed or rejected by Gallic society and government at different points in history, and filmmaker Yves Jeuland offers a provocative look at the history of French Jews in this documentary. Being Jewish in France begins with a study of the Dreyfus Affair and how it reflected anti-Semitism at the dawn of the 20th century, moving on to the role of French Jews in World War I. While the patriotism of Jews was more openly acknowledged after the war, their status as outsiders in the eyes of many French citizens was affirmed during World War II, when the nation fell to Nazi occupation and turned a blind eye to religious persecution and genocide. After the war, French Jews struggled to mend fences and reestablish their place in the national dialogue, but in the 1960s, as Arab immigrants began streaming into France and many leftists began openly supporting Palestine, it became clear that France's Jewish population still had reason to question how welcome they were in the land of their birth. Originally produced for French television, Being Jewish in France received its American premiere at the 2008 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

As a Parisian petrochemical company forges on into the 21st century, the in-house human resources psychologist leads a probe that proves the ghosts of the previous century still hold sway over current events in director Nicolas Klotz's labyrinthine drama. Simon (Mathieu Amalric) is a human resources worker who has spent the last seven years working at the Paris branch of a powerful German-based company called SC Farb. In addition to assessing the hiring and firing practices of the company, Simon was also charged with the task of conducting motivational workshops. When Assistant Director Karl Rose (Jean-Pierre Kalfon) implores Simon to conduct a clandestine assessment of firm director Mathias Jüst's (Michael Lonsdale) mental health after rumors of erratic behavior begin to circulate in the German head office, the shrewd human resources worker forms a factory orchestra as a means of stealthily gauging the stability of his violin-playing subject. Later, a comprehensive investigation of company archives and anonymous letters begin to snake ominously back in time to the darkest days of World War II. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Bruno (Grégoire Colin of Beau Travail) is a troubled art student fascinated with pristine white walls and empty space. A squalid, unhappy childhood has left him angry, reclusive, and obsessive. When his brutish uncle (Etienne Chicot), fed up with Bruno's eccentricities, threatens to kick him out, Bruno calmly murders him. Elise (Julie Ordon) is several years younger than Bruno, just entering adulthood. Her mother was murdered when Elise was a little girl, and Anne (Brigitte Catillon), the psychiatrist who used hypnosis to try to draw out her memory of the event, is now married to Elise's father, Richard (Laurent Grévill). Anne still worries that the mysterious man who murdered Elise's mother will return to harm Elise. She's overprotective to the point of paranoia, and Elise grows increasingly weary of her stepmother's constant meddling. When Bruno gets an interior design job at the upscale shoe store where Elise works, they are immediately drawn to each other. While Elise is quietly determined to draw out the odd, shy young man, Bruno seems to see Elise as some kind of ideal objet d'art. Anne, ever suspicious, suspects that Bruno is up to no good, and tries to keep Elise from seeing him. As Bruno plots to make Elise his, the twisted truth about her mother's murder is revealed. Inquiétudes, based on the novel A Sight for Sore Eyes by Ruth Rendell, was written and directed by Gilles Bourdos. It was shown at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Rendezvous With French Cinema in 2004. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

The stories of two desperate characters turn out to share an important link in this drama from French filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin. Nora (Emmanuelle Devos) is a woman in her mid-thirties who wants people to believe that her life is going just the way she wants. But a look below the surface shows this isn't quite the case; she's been divorced twice, her latest relationship is on the rocks, her ten-year-old son, Elias (Valentin Lelong), is becoming increasingly withdrawn, and her father (Maurice Garrel) is in poor health. When Nora learns that her father's digestive problems are actually cancer and he may only have a few days left to live, she desperately wants to turn to Ismael (Mathieu Amalric), her second husband. But Ismael is having a crisis of his own after a pattern of increasingly strange behavior has led him to an involuntary stay in a mental hospital. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This tough and gritty French-language crime drama represents the premier installment in a two-part series of features on the life and doings of notorious Gallic hood Jacques Mesrine (1936-1979). Mesrine is played, in both installments, by actor Vincent Cassel, who reportedly underwent massive weight gain and weight loss to convincingly portray the volatile Mesrine at various periods of his life. Director Jean-François Richet begins in 1979, with Mesrine's uncommonly violent death, whereby he and a beautiful young woman are suddenly (and fatally) ambushed by Parisian police not far from Mesrine's place of birth. Richet then flashes back to the Franco-Algerian War of the late '50s and a brutal interrogation undergone by Mesrine. Following a military discharge, Mesrine returns to his parents' suburb of Clichy, where his dad has arranged a pathetic job for him in a lace-making factory. Never one to take humiliation lying down, Jacques perceives burglary, larceny, and racketeering as much-superior options and decides to pursue a life of crime via a "business partnership" with childhood buddy Paul (Gilles Lellouche), who works for mobster Guido (Gérard Depardieu).

As the years pass, Jacques works his way up through the ranks of the underworld; via Paul, he also meets and falls hard for two women: Pigalle streetwalker Sarah (Florence Thomassin), and Sofia (Elena Anaya), a beautiful Spanish woman with whom he cohabitates after doing time in a French prison. Following a brief and unsuccessful attempt to "go straight," Jacques reconnects with Guido, then finds it necessary to escape from France to Canada with his new mistress, Jeanne (Cécile De France). Unfortunately, another prison sentence is waiting for him there, replete with brutal solitary confinement, but the possibility of a daring escape beckons. The second half of the Mesrine saga, entitled Mesrine: L'Énnemi Public No. 1 for French release, followed immediately after and picks up where this installment wraps. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Otar Iosseliani's comedy of manners is about eccentric old ladies and the equally eccentric guests who visit the ladies' mansion in a Parisian suburb. Though the picture's surrealistic touch, deliberately unhurried pace, and attention to detail are reminiscent of the later works of Luis Buñuel, Iosseliani is certainly an artist in his own right. ~ Yuri German, Rovi

This droll comedy from France was based on a popular stage play by the 18th century author Marivaux. As a lark, an attractive young heiress (Sandrine Kiberlain) disguises herself as a man as she travels with a servant for a weekend getaway to the estate of her close friend the Countess (Isabelle Huppert). En route, the heiress, introducing herself as "The Chevalier," encounters Lelio (Mathieu Amalric), the Countess' fiancée. Talking "man to man," Lelio confides that he isn't really in love with the Countess, but he is eager to get his hands on her dowry. He'd prefer to marry another woman he's met, who has an even greater fortune -- the heiress. However, he has already agreed to pay the Countess a considerable fortune if he breaks off the engagement; he's hoping that someone else will take her off his hands so that he can woo the heiress and come out ahead. The heiress, now aware just how much of a louse Lelio is, agrees as the Chevalier to romance the Countess, knowing that if "he" can win her away from Lelio, he'll be out of an income on both sides. Director Benoit Jacquot filmed La Fausse Suivante in a theater, using vintage costumes and minimal props to help retain the flavor of the stage production. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Olivier Assayas directed this French drama, examining several relationships over a year's span, capturing varying textures and shades of feeling between people from late August of one year until early September of the next. Gabriel (Mathieu Amalric) and Jenny (Jeanne Balibar) separate, despite the affection that still binds them. A new love develops between Gabriel and young designer Anne (Virginie Ledoyen) as they overcome their fears and uncertainties. At his publishing job, much of Gabriel's emotional energy is spent on his close friend Adrien (Francois Cluzet), a once-promising novelist whose recent writing failed to repeat the critical and commercial success of his early novels. Jenny, who remains friends with Adrien, embarks on a new relationship with Jeremie (Alex Descas). When an old illness reappears, Adrien must come to terms with an early death; he begins an affair with 15-year-old schoolgirl Vera (Mia Hansen-Love). The personal tragedy of Adrien's death impacts on the fabric of friendships, as the individuals in the group reflect on death, life, and the future. Jeanne Balibar's performance won her the "Best Actress" award at the 1998 San Sebastian Film Festival. Shown at the 1998 Toronto Film Festival and the 1998 New York Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Directed by Mathieu Amalric, a well-respected actor who has starred in such acclaimed French exports as Olivier Assayas' Late August, Early September and Arnaud Desplechin's My Sex Life, Wimbledon Stadium is an adaptation of a novel by Italian author Daniele Del Giudice. Its narrative revolves around a young, nameless woman (Amalric's frequent co-star Jeanne Balibar), who is traveling through Italy on a mission to attempt to learn why one of the country's most illustrious intellectuals, a man who influenced the work of many writers, was not himself a writer. In the process, the protagonist learns a great deal about her own work as a writer. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi