''The Girl on the Train'' (french: link=no, La fille du
RER) is a 2009 French drama film directed by
André Téchiné
André Téchiné (; born 13 March 1943) is a French screenwriter and film director. He has a long and distinguished career that places him among the most accomplished post- New Wave French film directors.
Téchiné belongs to a second generation ...
, starring
Emilie Dequenne,
Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Fabienne Dorléac (born 22 October 1943), known professionally as Catherine Deneuve (, , ), is a French actress as well as an occasional singer, model, and producer, considered one of the greatest European actresses. She gained recogni ...
and
Michel Blanc
Michel Blanc (born 16 April 1952) is a French actor, writer and director. He is noted for his roles of losers and hypochondriacs. He is frequently associated with Le Splendid, which he co-founded, along with Thierry Lhermitte, Josiane Balasko, ...
. The plot centers on an aimless girl who lies about being the victim of a hate crime.
Plot
Jeanne Fabre, an attractive late-teen carefree loner, spends her time rollerblading through Paris and job-hunting, a nuisance she endures to indulge her widowed mother, Louise, who runs a day-care center out of their house. Watching a television news story about
anti-semitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
attacks, Louise recognizes Samuel Bleistein, a prestigious Jewish lawyer who was in love with her many years ago. Louise arranges a job interview for her daughter at Bleistein's law firm.
Samuel is visited by his son Alex, who has comes to Paris to celebrate his son Nathan's upcoming
bar mitzvah. Alex's encounter with his ex-wife Judith, who is Samuel's assistant, is tense.
Jeanne's job interview is a disaster. Unfazed by this failure, Jeanne resumes rollerblading and unexpectedly meets Franck, a young wrestler, who instantly falls for her. A relationship ensues and the couple eventually move-in together. Believing Jeanne has a job, Franck finds a job as well, as the caretaker in an electrical shop. The place turns out to contain hidden drugs and Franck is badly wounded in a fight with a drug dealer. The police arrest Franck, who rejects Jeanne when she visits him at the hospital, having found out that she was lying the whole time about having a job.
Heartbroken, Jeanne returns home to live with her mother. One night, Jeanne draws three swastikas on her body, gives herself some minor cuts and cuts off part of her hair. She soon alleges to the police to have been brutally attacked by six hoodlums on the suburban
RER train because they thought she was Jewish (which she is not). The incident becomes a huge national cause célèbre—though Louise quietly believes her daughter has fabricated the incident.
Alex, still unsettled towards his ex-wife, decides not to go to Nathan's bar mitzvah. Judith begs him to reconsider, and they soon confirm that they do still love each other. At his hotel room, they make love and reconcile.
When Louise asks Samuel for help about Jeanne's problem, he invites them to join his family at his country house by a lake. As Samuel drives them all to his home, Nathan whispers to Jeanne that he believes she is lying about the whole affair. When all gather for dinner, Jeanne sticks to the same story she told the police: six youths approached her and, assuming she was Jewish, proceeded to assault her. After some extensive questioning, she decides to call it a night, but instead walks away and crosses the lake in a row-boat.
Nathan helps Jeanne when it starts to rain and invites her into his little shack, a safe haven to get away from his parents. As she is all wet, she strips down and sits next to the fireplace with Nathan. She shows him her scars, but eventually confesses that she made it up. Nathan convinces her to tell the others, and the next morning Jeanne confesses to Samuel. Samuel has her write and sign an open apology to all who were affected by the story. Jeanne and Louise return to Paris by train.
Jeanne goes to the police and is put in jail for 48 hours for her serious false statements. She eventually receives a suspended sentence and is required to attend psychiatric counseling. When Franck is interviewed by Samuel about Jeanne, Franck says he is still in love with her, despite her lying.
Samuel attends Nathan's bar mitzvah, when he also sees television footage of reporters interviewing Louise about the scandal. When they ask her about how her daughter knew the name of Bleistein, Louise lies and replies she does not know. Jeanne returns to live with her mother. She searches the internet for secretarial jobs. She receives a postcard from Nathan, who is in love with her. Jeanne is last seen rollerblading on a long path through trees.
Cast
*
Emilie Dequenne as Jeanne
*
Michel Blanc
Michel Blanc (born 16 April 1952) is a French actor, writer and director. He is noted for his roles of losers and hypochondriacs. He is frequently associated with Le Splendid, which he co-founded, along with Thierry Lhermitte, Josiane Balasko, ...
as Samuel Bleistein
*
Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Fabienne Dorléac (born 22 October 1943), known professionally as Catherine Deneuve (, , ), is a French actress as well as an occasional singer, model, and producer, considered one of the greatest European actresses. She gained recogni ...
as Louise
*
Mathieu Demy
Mathieu Demy (born 15 October 1972) is a French actor, film director and producer.
He is the son of French film directors Agnès Varda and Jacques Demy.
Career
Demy started as a young actor in Agnès Varda's films ''L'une chante, l'autre pas ...
as Alex
*
Ronit Elkabetz
Ronit Elkabetz ( he, רונית אלקבץ; 27 November 1964 – 19 April 2016) was an Israeli actress, screenwriter and film director. She worked in both Israeli and French cinema. She won three Ophir Awards and received a total of seven nomin ...
as Judith
*
Nicolas Duvauchelle
Nicolas Duvauchelle (born 27 March 1980) is a French actor, perhaps best known for his role as Theo in three seasons of the crime drama ''Braquo''.
Career
Duvauchelle starred in numerous films including ''Lightweight'', '' À tout de suite'' ...
as Franck
*
Arnaud Valois as Gabi
Production
''The Girl on the Train'' has its genesis on a real life case that made headlines in France. Marie Leonie Leblanc, a woman in her twenties, walked into a police station in Paris on 9 July 2004 claiming she had been the victim of an
antisemitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
attack on a suburban
RER train. According to her account, six men of
North African
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
descent ripped her clothes, cut some of her hair and daubed a
swastika
The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. It ...
on her stomach, knocking over the pram containing her baby.
[Sight & Sound
''Sight and Sound'' (also spelled ''Sight & Sound'') is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). It conducts the well-known, once-a-decade ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, ongoing ...]
, June 2010. Interview with Téchiné about ''The Girl on the Train'', p.8
Fellow passengers did nothing to help. The case provoked national outrage for its virulent antisemitism; politicians and the media seized on the incident.