SAINT OMER

Saint Omer failes to secure an emotional reaction from the audience, partly because of the detached filming style, partly because the performances by actresses Kayije Kagame and Guslagie Malanga are subpar.

On paper this year's French entry into the Oscar race ticks all the boxes to make a strong challenge for the gold, but for me the execution of Saint Omer leaves far too much to be desired to even consider it a good film.

Saint Omer mostly takes place in a courtroom where a young pregnant writer follows the trial of another woman who killed her infant. The picture clearly wants us to see similarities between their stories but director Alice Diop - making her fiction debut after plying her trade in award-winning documentaries - fails to secure an emotional reaction from the audience, partly because she choses a detached filming style, that plays like a dry courtroom transcript, partly because the performances by actresses Kayije Kagame and Guslagie Malanga are subpar.

The only time Saint Omer finds a pulse is right after the trial, when Nina Simone's touching Little Girl Blue fills the soundtrack, but this merely highlights how a more engaging film style could have elevated the picture into something more than a dull, underdeveloped drama.

release: 2022

director: Alice Diop

starring: Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanga, Valérie Dréville, Aurélia Petit