FemmeFilmFest21: ‘Mon Roi’ – The Painful Personification of Emotional Abuse

Mon Roi (My King) presents a love story that is equally intoxicating as it is painful. Director and cowriter Maïwenn portrays the ecstasy of finding a love that sweeps you off your feet (even if the red flags are there since the start), as well as the hopelessness of loving someone that is hurtful and careless with others, especially you. In an explosion of emotions, this film works as a painful reminder of a past toxic love for some, or as a loud cautionary tale for the lucky ones.

As the story that it presents, Mon Roi is imperfect and alarming, and deeply affecting. We meet Tony (Emmanuelle Bercot) as she carelessly goes down the French mountains during her skiing session. Her resoluteness is scary, and as we learn more about her story, these first minutes acquire a saddening shade.

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Soon enough we see her again as she arrives at a rehabilitation centre to treat the injury that she sustained during this careless act of bravado (or despair). As her counsellor suggests, she needs to reflect on the real reason behind her injury.

This leads us to flashbacks of her tumultuous relationship with Giorgio (Vincent Cassel). When Tony saw Giorgio on the dance floor for the first time, ten years before, she instantly became smitten. The scene of their first encounter works as an omen for this doomed love story: she approaches him deafeningly, firm on capturing his attention and interest, and he accepts, instantly manipulating her with wit and attitude.

Soon they start an intense and passionate relationship based on exhausting power dynamics where animosity, rudeness and carelessness are disguised as playfulness and humour. As they spend more time together, their personality traits start to dictate the silent rules of the relationship: she is too insecure and nervous to hold her ground, and he is too shady and volatile to offer her a sense of stability and safety. She cannot believe that someone like him wants to be with her, blinded by his shiny façade and ignoring the emotional abuse that she is victim of since the start.

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The film shows that there is a fine line between total bliss and complete misfortune with Tony going constantly from one side to the other. It seems that Giorgio lives under a fast and consuming philosophy, and somehow, Tony finds herself in his orbit.

As their story together unfolds, it becomes clear that this relationship will not end well. Their bond is too toxic to offer something strong and long-lasting. He is not good for her, and she expects him to change his lifelong ways. And yet, they persist. She persists.

In her fourth directorial effort, Maïwenn presents a story that is shaped by the passion and intensity of its main characters, for better or for worse. Mon Roi is a fast-paced drama where the relationship at the centre demolishes everything in its surroundings.

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For more than 120 minutes we see the many ways in which Giorgio and Tony destroy each other through empty promises, broken expectations, and a sick and stubborn refusal to let go. This path is painfully lived by Tony, who is transformed by the end of the film, having gone through a complete tornado of happiness, uncertainty, and deep heartbreak, repeatedly. As the credits roll, we mourn the person that she used to be and the opportunities of happiness that were fulminated by her relationship with Giorgio.

Emmanuelle Bercot – Best Actress in the 2005 edition of the Cannes Film Festival – gives a shameless and devoted performance, reacting to the nonsense that Giorgio brings into her life. Sometimes with infuriated rants and others with accepting smiles, her character goes through every possible emotion. Bercot brings to life Tony’s devotion, anticipation, and sadness.

While it is evident that the toxicity runs both ways, Maïwenn is particularly tough on Giorgio. She is determined to undress the volatile and seemingly funny man into the cruel and careless person that he really is.

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This story skilfully presents a realistic transformation of a very familiar kind of man that uses words and attitudes to get his way. He uses vulnerability when his needs are threatened, and hostility when he sees he is about to lose power. As he can be disarmingly charming, he can also be casually mean.

Such a layered character needed a clever actor, and Vincent Cassel is perfect casting. Cassel uses his charisma and masculinity to make such a despicable man attractive. Still, at the end of the film, Giorgio continues to be an enigma. Just as Tony, we never get to really know him.

Such an exhausting story is constantly helped by the presence of Solal (Louis Garrel, a highlight of the film) and Babeth (Isild Le Besco), Tony’s brother and sister-in-law, respectively. Solal is the one that constantly questions this fateful relationship. He witnesses – first expectantly and then uselessly – as his sister loses herself into this toxic circle.

Still, the film is not really worried about anyone but Tony and Giorgio. Mon Roi is a gruelling love story that quickly strips its romantic feelings of longing and excitement. While the film is extremely dramatic, the events that shape this relationship are too common in real life to dismiss. As such, it works as a tragic fable of what love is not supposed to be.

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