Director

Xavier Beauvois

France | 2021 | 115 min | French

• Producer Sylvie Pialat, Benoit Quainon, Ardavan Safaee
• Production Company Les Films du Worso, Pathé, Orange Studio, France 3 Cinéma, Scope Pictures
• Screenplay Xavier Beauvois, Frédérique Moreau, Marie-Julie Maille
• Cinematography Julien Hirsch
• Editing Marie-Julie Maille, Julie Duclaux
• Sound Jean-Pierre Duret, Loïc Prian, Eric Bonnard
• Cast Jérémie Renier, Marie-Julie Maille, Victor Belmondo, Iris Bry, Geoffrey Sery
• Contacts

  Pathe International Festival Rep: The Festival Agency

  fg@thefestivalagency.com

About the Film

Veteran French filmmaker Xavier Beauvois dives deep into the fragile psyche of a young gendarme in Drift Away , which takes its time but accomplishes its objective of describing the hum-drum life of an average man and a sudden violent drama that overturns his complacent existence. This event leads him into a dark night of the soul, on the other side of which lies redemption. Although the film is set in a small, peaceful beach town in Normandy and follows the everyday police activities of its quiet hero Laurent (Jérémie Renier), it really has a bigger story to tell.

This technically accomplished drama is unusual in that the first half simply details the happy home life of Laurent and his ten-year companion Marie (Marie-Julie Maille, who also has a screenwriting and editing credit). They have a little girl, Poulette, and in the first scene Laurent finally asks Marie to marry him. But not everything is perfect in the picturesque town by the sea, where Laurent and his friends go sailing in their free time.

The horrible and unexpected happens right away, during a photo shoot of newlyweds on the beach, when a young man jumps from a cliff and lands dead at their feet. This symbolic death is the precursor of another that will directly involve Laurent and change his life and outlook forever. Julien (Geoffrey Sery), a local farmer who is Laurent’s age and his friend, cracks under the pressure of European regulations regarding his livestock and disappears with a shotgun. Laurent’s sensitive response to what follows occupies the film’s epic second half, as the notes of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and Fauré’s Requiem convey the huge inner struggle he is going through. In the central role, Renier shows how far he has come as an actor after his childhood role in the Dardennes brothers’ La Promesse and last year’s Cannes film Slalom.

Deborah Young