Discussions of Isabelle Huppert’s latest thriller should come with a trigger warning. What happened to real-life union rep Maureen Kearney, in 2012, was horrific. What she endured over the next five years was also barbaric. And if you like full-on happy endings stop reading now. Kearney’s story can be summed up by the phrase ‘no good deed goes unpunished’. And in playing the role, as you’d expect, 70-year-old French icon, Huppert, is magnificent.
In 2011, frosty, fragile, uncannily glamorous Kearney (Irish in real life, but played here as 100% French), is holding her own at nuclear engineering firm, Areva. When an Areva official, Luc Oursel (Yvan Attal), delivers a patronising comment about female employees, Kearney cuts him down to size with a deliciously-timed intake of breath (it’s plain as day: she thinks he’s a tosser).
