''The Divide'' (french: La Fracture) is a 2021 French

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Catherine Corsini Catherine Corsini (born 18 May 1956) is a French film director, screenwriter and actress. Her film ''Replay (2001 film), Replay'' was entered into the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Her 2012 film ''Three Worlds (film), Three Worlds'' competed in the ...

. In June 2021, the film was selected to compete for the

Palme d'Or The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...

at the

2021 Cannes Film Festival The 74th annual Cannes Film Festival took place from 6 to 17 July 2021, after having been originally scheduled from 11 to 22 May 2021. American director Spike Lee was invited to be the head of the jury for the festival for a second time, after t ...

. At Cannes, it won the Queer Palm. The film centres on Raf and Julie, a couple who find themselves in a hospital, having nearly suffocated, on the night before a major demonstration.

Synopsis

During a winter evening in 2018, Raf, on the verge of breaking up with Julie, fractures an elbow and ends up in the

emergency department An emergency department (ED), also known as an accident and emergency department (A&E), emergency room (ER), emergency ward (EW) or casualty department, is a medical treatment facility specializing in emergency medicine, the acute care of pati ...

of a large Parisian hospital. At the same time, Yann arrives injured from the clash with the

riot police Riot police are police who are organized, deployed, trained or equipped to confront crowds, protests or riots. Riot police may be regular police who act in the role of riot police in particular situations or they may be separate units organize ...

at a large demonstration of yellow vests. The encounter between these three characters shatters their certainties and prejudices, while outside the tension intensifies and the hospital has to close its doors for the protestors who besiege the building and the staff are overwhelmed.

Cast

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, also written Bruni-Tedeschi (; born 16 November 1964), is an Italian-French actress, screenwriter and film director. Her 2013 film, ''A Castle in Italy,'' was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. ...

as Raf *

Marina Foïs Marina Sylvie Foïs (born 21 January 1970) is a French actress. Life and career Born in Boulogne-Billancourt in the department of Hauts-de-Seine in a family from Russian, Jewish Egyptian, German and Italian ancestry, Marina Foïs was discove ...

as Julie *

Pio Marmaï Pio Marmaï (born 13 July 1984) is a French actor. He has appeared in more than twenty films since 2008. Early life and education Marmaï was born on 13 July 1984. His mother is a former costume designer at the Opéra de Strasbourg, and his f ...

as Yann * Jean-Louis Coulloc'h * Aïssatou Diallo Sagna

Production

The role of Raf represents Catherine Corsini a lot, who fell breaking her elbow and finding herself in the emergency room on 1 December 2018, the day of the First Act of the Yellow Vests ic In September 2020, it was announced

, Jean-Louis Coulloc'h and Aïssatou Diallo Sagna had joined the cast of the film. Catherine Corsini wrote the script alongside Agnès Feuvre, with Laurette Polmanss collaborating. Filming began on 23 September 2020 and was scheduled to place over seven weeks in the Paris region and in

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

Release

The film premièred at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

on 9 July 2021. It was first theatrically released in France on 27 October 2021.

Reception

Box office

''The Divide'' grossed $0 in the United States and Canada, and a worldwide total of $2.2 million, against a production budget of about $4.8 million.

Critical response

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 72% based on 18 reviews, with an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

rating of 6/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film holds a score of 61 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Divide, The 2021 films 2021 drama films 2021 LGBT-related films 2020s French-language films French drama films French LGBT-related films Films directed by Catherine Corsini LGBT-related drama films Lesbian-related films Queer Palm winners 2020s French films