Xavier Giannoli brings his natural force and flair to this rake’s-progress spectacular, a blue-chip French costume drama adapted from Honoré de Balzac’s 1837 novel about a poetic youth who comes to the big city with provincial idealism and callow sensitivity, only to replace them with ambition, lust, corruption and (worst of all) journalism. An earlier generation might have shrugged at this as cinéma du papa, and modern audiences might smirk at the kind of decorative movie that features archly in the opening credits of Netflix’s French TV comedy Call My Agent! But it’s acted with such terrific panache that not enjoying it is impossible.
Our hero is Lucien Chardon, pertly played by Benjamin Voisin (one of the lovers in François Ozon’s recent drama Summer of 85). Lucien is a humble printer’s assistant and smalltown poet, who styles himself “du Rubempré” after his well-connected mother; his handsome face and ardent verses capture the heart of local aristocrat, Louise de Bargeton (Cécile de France), with whom Benjamin is soon having an affair. A ferocious confrontation with Louise’s splutteringly cuckolded husband means that Lucien decides to make a clean break and head for Paris where, with Louise’s help, he is quite certain his poetic talent will make him the toast of the town. But his maladroit manners and absurdly misjudged new clothes embarrass Louise in front of her grand friends, including the cunning Marquise d’Espard (Jeanne Balibar) and a fashionable author who is to become Lucien’s mortal frenemy: Nathan d’Anastazio, played by that notable director and talented actor Xavier Dolan.
