VOD film review: The Night of the 12th
Review Overview
Moll
8Lanners
8Procedural
8Matthew Turner | On 24, Jun 2023
Director: Dominik Moll
Cast: Bastien Bouillon, Bouli Lanners, Théo Cholbi, Johann Dionnet, Thibaut Evrard, Julien Frison, Paul Jeanson, Mouna Soulam, Pauline Serieys, Anouk Grinberg, Lula Cotton Frapier
Certificate: 15
Directed by Dominik Moll (Harry, He’s Here To Help), this French detective thriller is based on a true crime book by Pauline Guéna, although it fictionalises the real-life case. The film also has a point to make, so it functions as both a depressingly realistic police procedural and an astute observation of the state of society.
Set in Grenoble, the film begins on the titular night of the 12th – the 12th of October 2016, to be exact – when a beautiful young woman named Clara (Lulu Cotton-Frapier) is brutally murdered by a hooded assailant, while walking home from her friend’s house. Assigned to the case are Yohan Vivès (Bastien Bouillon) – who’s just been promoted to take over his police unit after the retirement of his much-loved commanding officer – and his older partner Marceau (Bouli Lanners), a gruff, bearded veteran who’s going through a miserable divorce, after his wife met someone else.
The pair’s painstaking investigation throws up three extremely likely suspects: a creepy weirdo from her health club, with whom she slept a few times, a jealous rapper who recorded a track in which he threatened to kill her in a manner matching her murder, and an older lover (Pierre Lottin) with a history of domestic violence. However, the suspects are all seemingly eliminated and the investigation hits a brick wall, frustrating the detectives and their department.
From the outset, the film paints a stark portrait of misogyny, not just in the horrific detail of Clara’s death, but also in the disturbing attitudes of the suspects, and even reactions from within the overly macho police force, with everyone quick to blame Clara for having been promiscuous. Later, a thoughtful Yohan astutely observes, “I believe we can’t find him because all men killed Clara”, and you can feel the truth of it, so oppressive is the atmosphere throughout.
The film digs over and examines our own expectations for police procedural thrillers – a brutal murder demands a captured and punished culprit, right? Right. As with David Fincher’s Zodiac and Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder (whose combined influence is clearly felt), the film becomes as much about the effect on the detectives for not being able to solve the case as it is about the case itself. To that end, such is the power of Moll’s direction that he somehow gets away with a very on-the-nose, heavily symbolic depiction of Yohan’s sense of futility – his nightly wind-down routine involves cycling round a bicycle track over and over again.
The central performances are excellent, with both Lanners and Bouillon creating believable, lived-in characters, as well as an evolving relationship that is consistently engaging. There’s also strong – albeit belated – support from Mouna Soualem, whose character becomes the lone female presence in the Grenoble police department, several years into the case, and injects new life into it.
In short, this is a superbly made thriller that pointedly defies convention. By turns chilling and thought-provoking, it will stay with you long after the credits roll.