Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Wendy Ide

Saint Omer review – Alice Diop’s compelling courtroom drama

Kayije Kagame in Saint Omer.
Bearing witness… Kayije Kagame as Rama in Saint Omer. Prod.DB/Alamy Photograph: TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy

The first fiction feature from director Alice Diop, who has previously worked in documentary (her films include the multi-award-winning We), the French-language courtroom drama Saint Omer is as intriguing as it is intellectually rigorous. Inspired by Diop’s own experience of attending the trial of a woman accused of murdering her baby, it’s a meditative exploration of a complicated connection between the woman in the dock and the one who bears witness.

Rama (Kayije Kagame), Diop’s alter ego in the story, is a writer looking for inspiration. She is also pregnant and processing a tangle of emotions about what it is to be a mother. Laurence (the remarkable Guslagie Malanda), a charismatic and eloquent Senegalese immigrant, is serenely assured as a defendant in the murder trial, but jarringly discordant when it comes to her experiences of motherhood. Diop deftly depicts the two women as distorted mirror images of each other: Rama recognises something in Laurence even as she abhors her crime.

Watch a trailer for Saint Omer.
  • Saint Omer is in cinemas in the UK now and from 7 March in Australia

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.