SIBYL
Justine TRIET — FRANCE, BELGIUM — 100 minutes
IN A NUTSHELL
Sibyl (Virginie Efira), a psychotherapist, returns to her first passion: writing. Her latest patient Margot (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a troubled up-and-coming actress, becomes a source of inspiration. Sibyl becomes more and more involved in Margot’s life, that it becomes her obsession. Sibyl’s involvement results in reviving volatile memories that bring her face to face with her past. (words by Bianca Garner)
CRITICAL RESPONSE
“All the tautness and tension that is needed for the main Margot/Igor/Mika/Sybil story is dissipated with other stuff – and even the main story is complicated by Mika, who is not a very well-written character – and sadly Hüller is not especially good in the part.” — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“Where many filmmakers might have steered this script straight into a film noir alley, Triet keeps her film’s genre leanings in flux: variously nodding to Hitchcockian suspense, Bergman-lite character analysis and bourgeois comedy of manners, with an onscreen hat-tip to David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows tossed in for good measure. In this sense, Sibyl is as reluctant to be pinned into an identity as its protagonist is, though Triet directs the whole with consistently silky style.” — Guy Lodge, Variety
“Ultimately, Sibyl becomes a brighter, sillier, film-within-a-film spoof of the Woody Allen variety, and sends Sibyl careening further into a black hole of drunken resentment and self-destruction that underserves her character. Still, the movie remains a spirited look at how tension can run high on troubled sets.” — Eric Kohn, IndieWire
PRIZE PROSPECTS
The fourth female filmmaker of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival official selection is Justine Triet, and she has had to wait the longest to screen her new comedy, Sibyl. Last of the twenty-one films in competition for the Palme d’Or might be a little too light to burst the bubbles of other heavyweight contenders. But you never know.
The Best Screenplay prize is always the toughest to call (I mean, Chronic was awful), but if the quirks of Sibyl are enough, then Triet, and co-scripter Arther Harari, might get to come onstage yet. Before the festival even started I was somehow magnetized by Virginie Efira, who is far bigger in France than our colder shores. And with a gun to my head, I would have picked her for the Best Actress prize (Adèle Exarchopoulos might share?), but with the influx of the talent from the other twenty films, its a much tougher call. That said, if you see Efira arriving for tonight’s awards hand-outs, its her. (words by Robin Write)
