Cannes film review: "The Minister"

Reuters

CANNES, France (Hollywood Reporter) – At once intriguing and dense, disjointed and overwrought, "The Minister" ("L'Exercise de l'Etat") represents a challenging second feature from writer-director Pierre Schoeller ("Versailles"), and one that doesn't quite get all its ducks in a row. Anchored by Olivier Gourmet's sharp performance as a French transports minister dealing with a multitude of sticky issues and stress-inducing scenarios, this episodic political yarn will tally up votes in Francophone territories, with a solid TV showing.

"Politics is a wound that never heals," declares Bertrand Saint-Jean (Gourmet), a fast-acting, forever on the move policy machine who never lets down his guard - or his Blackberry - as he's shuffled from one five-minute meeting to another. With the help of his PR maven, Pauline (Zabou Breitman), and top-notch private secretary, Gilles (Michel Blanc), Saint-Jean maneuvers his way through the complex inner workings of the French bureaucracy, sticking to his guns when he can, but capitulating when the powers-that-be decide otherwise.

Kicking off with a surreal dream sequence that shows a naked woman crawling into the mouth of a crocodile (the symbolism is rather obvious given what comes after), the story then shifts to a brutal bus accident site where Saint-Jean gives a pro-forma speech, before he heads back Paris to deal with a plethora of issues affecting his Ministry of Transportation. Among the many plot lines - which are tough to follow given how quickly the shifting narrative jumps between them - Saint-Jean's trickiest beast is a controversial privatization of France's train stations, a plan he's fundamentally opposed to despite the government's favoring of the reform.

Dardenne Bros. (credited as producers) regular Gourmet offers up his usual frenzied, sweatbucket antics, adding nuance to a character who exists more as a reaction to surrounding forces than as a distinct personality. As he faces an army of cabinet enemies and tries to keep his office afloat, Saint-Jean barely has time to stop and think - or see his family, beyond a run-and-gun sexual encounter with his wife (Arly Jover) - and the same could be said for Schoeller's vision, which dishes out tons of ideas without ever holding onto one long enough to provide substantial dramatic pull.

As a trusty (but not too trusty) right-hand man, Blanc ("The Girl on the Train") provides the film's most solid supporting role, though his relationship with Saint-Jean is often too ambiguous to pin down, turning their third-act conflict into yet another subplot to be dealt with.

Gripping widescreen shooting by ace director of photography Julien Hirsch ("Unforgivable") balances out the multitude of locations and settings, while a dissonant score by Philippe Schoeller (the director's brother) is meant to reflect Saint-Jean's frenetic state of mind.