Isabelle Huppert is outstanding in this thriller

This film is a provocative and at times disturbing drawn-from-life drama that is given extra power by Isabelle Huppert.

2 min read

9:23AMJune 13, 2024

Isabelle Huppert in La Syndicaliste. Picture: Le Bureau Films

To start with something unimportant, I’m not sure why the French corporate-political-gender thriller La Syndicaliste (The Trade Unionist) has been titled The Sitting Duck for its English release.

As the main character, who comes from a family of no-nonsense Irish trade unionists, jokes when she vows to fight rather than flee, “I was starting to get soft.” She is the target of anger and aggression, but she is no sitting duck.

To move on to the important, this film, directed and co-written by Jean-Paul Salome, is a provocative and at times disturbing drawn-from-life drama that is given extra power by an outstanding performance by Isabelle Huppert.

The pivotal point is an alleged attack on Irish-born, France-based trade unionist Maureen Kearney (Huppert) at her home in Versailles on December 17, 2012.

Kearney is long-term union leader at the French nuclear power company Areva, which competes with the government-owned Electricite de France. China, and its desire to be involved in nuclear power, is the ghost on the horizon.

She is found strapped to a stool with a balaclava covering her head. The letter A has been cut on to her stomach and a knife is lodged in her vagina, handle first so the blade points outwards. She has been there for six hours.

The first half the film, which is based on the 2019 book La Syndicaliste by French investigative journalist Caroline Michel-Aguirre, is the lead-up to the incident.

The chief executive of Areva, Anne Lauvergeon (Marina Fois), with whom Kearney is friends, is sacked. She is replaced by her deputy, Luc Oursel (Yvan Attal), whom Kearney does not trust.

“Areva employs 50,000 people and my job is to defend them,’’ she says. “If I do nothing it will be a disaster.”

A mole at EDF tells her of plans to share French nuclear power technology with China. This will mean the loss of French jobs, with female employees the first to go.

She takes on her new CEO, who declares, “You think you, a little union lady, can intimidate me? I’ll reduce you to rubble.” He’s not alone in this view. A senior government official considers her a “hysteric in a skirt.”

She receives anonymous phone calls that amount to death threats. Her French husband of 20 years Gilles Hugo (Gregory Gadebois), a musician, is there for her, but there are hints of dissatisfaction in their marriage.

“Wonder Woman hasn’t handed in her costume yet,’’ he tells her.

Huppert is superb as a woman who is strong and calm to the point of detachment, or perhaps disassociation. Look for the extended scene where she recreates the attack for the police.

The second half of the film explores what happened after December 17, 2012. The police come to doubt Kearney’s story of assault and rape. In short, they think she staged it herself. They note she reads a lot of crime fiction.

Her back story does not help. She’s a former alcoholic who has attempted suicide. She sees a psychiatrist and is on drugs that can lead to unusual dreams. She was raped at 20 but the rapist received a light sentence due to “mitigating” factors.

This twist, from possible victim to possible offender, reminds me of the superb 2019 miniseries Unbelievable, starring Australia’s Toni Colette. There is also a strong connection to Paul Verhoeven’s 2016 psychological thriller Elle, for which Huppert received an Oscar nomination.

In each film, her character, a strong, successful, outspoken woman with secrets in her past, is not considered a “good” victim. As Kearney tells her former boss, a woman with her own agenda, “The struggle continues”.