Abuse of Weakness
This examination of power, greed, emotional manipulation and simple need is gripping and powerful to behold.
Abuse of Weakness
In 2004, at the age of 56, filmmaker Catherine Breillat suffered a serious stroke. Her left side was initially paralyzed and after five months in the hospital she worked like a demon to walk again. Not long after, she prepared an adaptation of her novel Bad Love and decided to cast the notorious "swindler of the stars," Christophe Rocancourt, fresh from a jail term for fraud. Over the next several months, Rocancourt took advantage of Breillat’s condition and stood by her side as she wrote him checks amounting to €650,000. She later took him to court won her case, and chronicled the experience in a book that she has now adapted into a uniquely haunting film, with a bold, tough performance by Isabelle Huppert as the Breillat figure and French/Portuguese rapper Kool Shen as the con man.
Genre
Drama
Runtime
105
Language
French
Director
Catherine Breillat
Cast
Isabelle Huppert,
Kool Shen
FEATURED REVIEW
Kristin M. Jones, Film Comment Magazine
Two extraordinary scenes bookend Catherine Breillat’s latest film, inspired by her experience of a stroke in 2004 and subsequent entanglement with con man Christophe Rocancourt. First, in a striking overhead shot, film director Maud Shoenberg (Isabelle Huppert) awakens in bed and with growing panic ...
Played at
Royal 8.22.14 - 9.04.14
Playhouse 7 8.23.14 - 9.01.14
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