Gentle Monster review: Léa Seydoux is quietly devastating in Marie Kreutzer’s dark chamber piece

Gentle Monster

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Director: Marie Kreutzer

Cert: 16

Genre: Drama

Starring: Léa Seydoux, Jella Haase, Laurence Rupp, Malo Blanchet, Anton Rubtsov, Nils Strunk, Catherine Deneuve

Running Time: 1 hr 55 mins

With a curtsey to the late Princess Diana, Corsage, Marie Kreutzer’s much-admired film from 2022, probed the intramarital loneliness of the much-loved, wildly fashionable 19th-century royal rebel Empress Elisabeth of Austria. That much-decorated film became embroiled in controversy when its star Florian Teichtmeister, who played the emperor, was charged and convicted of the possession of child pornography.

Coincidentally, Kreutzer was already working on Gentle Monster, a dark what-if chamber piece in which a husband is arrested in similar circumstances. Léa Seydoux is quietly devastating as Lucy, a French musician who relocates to the Bavarian countryside with her husband, Philip (Laurence Rupp), a German television director, and their young son.

Their comfortable domestic life is torpedoed when police arrive with a warrant and seize Philip’s electronic devices. He is accused of distributing child-sexual-abuse material through an online group. Investigators are also examining whether he helped produce it. Philip claims he was researching a documentary on paedophilia. Lucy initially clings to these claims of innocence. But his explanations become increasingly dubious as the investigation continues.

Affecting horrors underpin Kreutzer’s script. For Lucy, her spouse’s alleged criminality, however heinous the charges, does not automatically erase years of affection. Worse, the question of what he has done, and what their son might have been exposed to, haunts the film.

For both the viewer and Lucy, red flags pre-date the arrest. Why did Philip have a panic attack at the start of the film? And why did he drag Lucy to the middle of nowhere, far from her mother (played by the always welcome Catherine Deneuve)?

Kreutzer broadens the story through Detective Elsa Kühn (Jella Haase), whose dogged determination to investigate Philip contrasts with her reluctance to confront her own doting, elderly father, who has been behaving inappropriately towards the home help. The parallel raises troubling questions about the excuses people make for men they love.

Seydoux transforms Lucy’s isolating struggle into a masterclass of restraint. Judith Kaufmann’s handheld camera hovers over her distress. The French singer Camille’s convincing arrangements for Lucy’s performances add melancholy moments and provide a poignant Greek chorus in this thoughtful, thorny drama.

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Gentle Monster is in cinemas from Saturday, October 31st, and on Netflix from Wednesday, November 18th