By Variety | Created at 2024-11-15 14:01:15 | Updated at 2024-11-23 06:58:33
1 week ago
In 2011, French thesps Omar Sy and Anne Le Ny co-starred in the comedy hit “Untouchable.” Now, the two are reunited in the domestic thriller “Out of Control,” with “Lupin” star Sy in one of the leading roles next to Elodie Bouchez (“All Your Faces,” “The Dreamlife of Angels”), José Garcia (“Totems,” “The Ax”) and Vanessa Paradis (“Knife + Heart,” “Café de Flore”), while Le Ny serves as director and Axella Cachman’s co-writer.
“There was a real bond and warmth between us then, which was easy to revive 13 years later,” says Le Ny, who shared the screen time with Matt Damon in “Stillwater” and earned her first writing/helming kudos for her breakthrough movie “Those Who Remain” (2008).
Her seventh pic as helmer, “Out of Control (“Dis moi juste que tu m’aimes”) world premieres at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival official competition on Nov. 16, is being produced by Move Movie’s Bruno Levy, in co-production with Sy’s production company Korokoro, France 2 Cinéma and La Compagnie Cinématographique & Panache Productions, with backing from Canal+, Disney+ and France Televisions. M6 Group’s SND handles global sales and French distribution, set for Feb. 19, 2025.
“I’m thrilled to be selected for the main competition and to attend Tallinn. I’m a huge fan of Baltic German fiction author Eduard von Keyserling who writes about the historic region of Courland,” Le Ny enthuses.
With “Out of Control,” she goes back to the thriller genre, first tested in “Le Torrent,” headlining Garcia. “I was keen to explore it under a slightly different angle, with drama and suspense suddenly erupting in an ordinary family.”
In the pic, Sy plays Julien, a school counselor, married Marie (Bouchez) and a father of two. When Julien’s first flame, Anaëlle (Paradis), returns to town, the insecure Marie fears that her 15-year marriage won’t survive Anaëlle’s irresistible charm and finds comfort in Thomas (Garcia), her flirtatious boss. But what she sees as a one-off affair turns into a dangerous obsession for Thomas.
“It’s a psychological thriller about manipulation, deceit, with love at its core,” says Le Ny. “You often see stories on screen about first love or the end of love, but rarely about the ‘middle’ of love or enduring love. The question is, what is left of love in a 15-year-old marriage when the relationship almost looks like a business partnership? It’s a thriller where you see the couple discuss laundry and heating problems. I wanted domestic chores to weigh in heavily, to be like the organic material in the pic,” says Le Ny.
To enrich her material, the filmmaker searched for inspiration from classic pics about marriage – Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage,” Woody Allen’s “Husbands and Wives” and Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story.” And, of course, Adrian Lyne’s suspense pic “Fatal Attraction,” about neurotic obsession.
“‘Fatal Attraction’ is a fab suspense thriller, but it’s also full of gender clichés,” Le Ny says. “Michael Douglas’s wife in the movie (played by Anne Archer) is, of course, a housewife, while his lover, Glenn Close, is a successful independent woman, but a total lunatic! My idea was, therefore, to kind of reverse the situation and make Sy the cheated husband who has to back his wife.”
The theme of marriage was also one of the reasons why Sy came on board, according to Le Ny. “Omar is in a long-lasting marital relationship, which isn’t very common in our profession,” she underscores with a smile. “He loved his character, the fact that Julien’s job as a school counselor is ‘to fix’ stuff. At the same time, Julien is very romantic; he never really got over his first love, although he’s been able to move on and is happy with Marie.”
For his nuanced role, Sy “had to dig deep into his heart and soul, look for something else, restrained, without relying on his natural charm and flamboyance. It was a joy to work with him,” Le Ny says.
As a character actor, Le Ny also praises the three other thesps. Garcia, who made Thomas “a narcissist pervert, absolutely charming, sincere and totally believable,” Paradis, the ideal threateningly seductive ex: “Who on earth would like to have Vanessa Paradis as your husband’s ex?” asks the helmer mischievously. Bouchez was then able to bring in “a lot of sensitivity, vulnerability, twinned with inner strength which gradually builds in the pic. “
Ultimately, Le Ny feels that beyond the thriller tropes, “Out of Control” is “an empowering story of resilience where the main female character, although initially seduced by her boss, is able to push him away once she’s figured out his neurotic behavior,” I wanted to show that yes-it’s possible to confront your predator,” she says.
Filming took place in the city of Vannes and its surroundings in Brittany, one of the helmer’s top spots in France. “Thanks to the team and the four lead actors, altogether charming in private and very different, we had a wonderful time, despite a very wet shoot and three huge storms,” Le Ny comments.
“Out of Control” will compete in Tallinn for the €20, 000 ($21,300) Grand Prize, with the awards ceremony slated for the festival’s closing night, Nov. 23.
