A Mother’s Sorrows- Catherine Deneuve’s
In The Name Of My Daughter
DVD Review
By Sam Lowell
In The Name Of My Daughter, in French
English subtitles, Catherine Deneuve, Guillaume Canet, Adèle Haenel, 2015
Sometimes stories from real life,
like the French film under review In The
Name Of My Daughter, about the disappearance and apparent murder of a
casino heiress in the 1970s are more baffling than some screenwriter’s
fantastic noir-ish detective ideas. What starts out as a rather crude
power-play for Madame Le Roux’s casino in the casino wars of the 1970s on the
French Rivera by Mafia-connected figures leads to the death of her daughter,
probably murdered by a feckless lover, or had been done by parties unknown on
his orders. There is in the end just enough doubt about whether the lover was
involved with the disappearance to keep this reviewer still scratching his head
over the matter. The director of the film has been quoted as saying that he
stayed rather close to the real story line as it unfolded over a thirty years
period to only add to that feeling about the story line.
Here is how it played out. French
Rivera casino-owner Renee Le Roux (played by Catherine Deneuve whose name was
last seen by this reviewer on a river cruise boat on the Seine in Paris and
while I admired her films when she was young I did not realize then that she
was still alive) was being squeezed out by Mafia-connected men who want to
consolidate their hold on the lucrative high-end gambling business there.
Madame Le Roux was able to hold out for a while with votes of her adult
daughter Agnes and her lawyer/advisor Maurice. Then thing start to go awry.
Agnes, unhappy over a failed marriage, seeking some independent from
overbearing Mom and seeking her inheritance due her from her late father’s
estate, and Maurice, squeezed out by Madame from running the casino become hot,
passionate lovers, and with that as a factor decided to side with the
Mafia-types in their takeover. The prize for Agnes-the equivalent of her
expected inheritance-for Maurice-access to serious dough from a joint account
set up by Agnes with him which he never had as a struggling lawyer. Needless to
say this betrayal by daughter and advisor put a serious strain on that
mother-daughter relationship.
But that is where the “in the name of
my daughter” of the title (English title) comes in. All was not well in the
Agnes-Maurice relationship for he was a philanderer and she rather than being
the independent athletic young woman of the earlier part of the film turned out
to be extremely needy. Maurice balked, as was to be expected when she started
to make plans for their future, and this indifference led Agnes into doing many
rash acts-including a suicide attempt. Maurice still balked. Then one day Agnes
was gone from her apartment never to be seen again. A few months later Maurice
under the financial arrangements they had worked out in sunnier times, has all
of Agnes’ assets transferred to his account and he left for Panama.
Something was certainly wrong with
turn of events and Madame Le Roux started what would be a determined, a very
focused attempt using all her dwindling resources to have Maurice tried for
murder. A lot of things didn’t add up in the French justice system, a system
different from the English common law traditions we are more familiar with as
allowable circumstantial evidence since no body was found, statements made,
guilt and such but Renee did get her day in court. Maurice too, although at the
end of the film he was found not guilty. As the credits began to roll we find
that he was later found guilty (what about double jeopardy) and is now serving
a twenty year sentence for the murder of Agnes. Like I said real life has plenty
of twists in it, plenty.
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