Gentle Monster is the latest film from French director Marie Kreutzer, who was critically acclaimed for her 2022 film Corsage. That was a film on a grand scale focused on a year in the life of Empress Elizbeth of Austria in 1877. By comparison, “Gentle Monster” is simply movie about betrayal and surprise for a renowned French pianist and songwriter married to a German documentary filmmaker. Gentle Monster screened at The American French Film Festival in Hollywood last week.
The pianist/songwriter is Lucy Weiss (Léa Seydoux) and her filmmaker husband is Philip Weiss (Laurence Rupp). Along with their young son Johnny (Malo Blanchet), they relocate from the city to a house in the countryside in Germany. An abbreviated montage introduces us to the Lucy in the family’s urban residence where she is working at the piano on a new song. Suddenly her husband Philip comes in the front door and collapses while hyperventilating in the hallway. What exactly is wrong with Philip is not disclosed.
The move by the couple to the German countryside seems like a good way to rest and unplug from the business of city life. Johnny seems to enjoy the open space and riding his bicycle around. He is thrilled when his father Phillip purchases a trampoline and assembles it is the yard. Things seem pleasant enough for Lucy and Philip in this country setting and their relationship warmly expressed. Philip is often on his laptop working on a film project, supposedly his next documentary film.
That is the scene until their quaint existence is interrupted by the arrival of a detective Elsa Kühn (Jella Haase), who has a search warrant for Philip’s hard drives and flash drives. Philip immediately becomes a shivering mess. Lucy is not exactly what is going on, as Philip claims that the material the police are Investigating has something to do with the documentary film he is trying to make. However, it is clear that what is on the hard drives and flash drives are photographs and most likely illegal child pornography – and producing and selling such is a serious crime.
As the investigation proceeds, Philip is taken away by the police for further questioning and Lucy is overs-whelmed by the gravity of the situation. Gentle Monster” forward isn’t commanded by any procedural mechanics, although Elsa Kühn the police detective leave the evidence in the hands of the IT analysts. This is a film about processing the realization that the person you thought you knew and trusted might actually be a monster. What Lucy begins to wonder is whether Philip did any videos involving their son Johnny, who adores his father and likes to be with him.
Kreutzer explores the possibility that men can be monsters through two arcs: First, Lucy coming to terms with reality of what Philip has been doing; the second is a subplot involving Kühn’s touchy father (Sylvester Groth), who seems to have dementia but makes inappropriate advances on the live-in caregiver in her home. Both strands are meant to be commentaries about the ways society and even women can perpetuate the violence of men. The separate stories unfold, as Lucy asks why Elsa wants to know so much about her and her family, but discloses little about herself. This odd relationship emerges as a series of events but offers little in the way of character insight.
The film has several false endings, instances of jumping backward and forward in time, and curious intimate conversations, such the one between Lucy and her mother Eloise (Catherine Deneuve) that distract the viewer and postpone the inevitable. Much is not said but felt in regards to the reality of Philip’s involvement with child pornography as a middle-man, marketing to seedy buyers.
There’s one exchange in the film, in fact, whereby the protagonist, a pianist, is told to seek therapy only for her to respond that the piano is like talking to someone. The psychologist explains to Lucy why pedophiles are the way they are. We are left to ponder the mystery that is never really explained. By the time we are halfway through the film, it feels like we all know what happened and it is Lucy who cannot bring herself to admit that her husband for all of his seeming “gentleness” is a “monster” and even willing to put her son at risk.
It has been pointed out that the director Kreutzer was inspired by a 2023 scandal that involved Kreutzer learning that Florian Teichtmeister, her actor from Corsage, was charged with possession of child pornography. Perhaps she was too close to her own feelings of betrayal and surprise in learning that and found herself going down the rabbit hole of that experience. At any rate, Gentle Monster is an interesting take on the blindsightness of any of us when a loved one is operating in a world of dubious moral choices. The film has been picked by NETFLIX and will be available for screening soon.
