'The successor': unusual extravagance on the genetics of evil

The mind is sometimes an indecipherable labyrinth.

To the unspeakable, to the insane.

And cinema, on certain occasions, echoes this with proposals as extravagant and unbalanced, but ultimately so unique, as

The Successor,

the second film by French director Xavier Legrand.

A dark and almost delirious walk through madness, the inheritance of the insane and the fear of illness, starring a young and prestigious couturier who begins his career as artistic director of a Parisian haute couture brand, while at the same time he must travel to Montreal, in Canada, to the funeral of a father from whom he had been separated for many years.

A descendant on a double side: the artistic and the consanguineous.

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The successor

opens with a fashion show in which the spectacular setting is made up of a kind of endless circular labyrinth that gives us a first clue about the symbolism of the proposal.

Later, in the building of the luxurious funeral home that is in charge of organizing the burial of his father, who died due to a stroke, another spiral staircase once again marks the growing process of madness that the character will suffer, harassed by the hypertension and severe chest pains that it is not known if they are due to a heart problem or simple life anguish.

Yves Jacques (left) and Marc-André Grondin, in the funeral sequence in 'The Successor'.

Increasingly stressed by the character's attitude, already in Canada, pending a thousand professional details and numerous bureaucracies surrounding the body, the organization of the burial, the donation of her father's things, about whom she wants nothing to know or Inherit, and the sale of the house, the film, in any case, is still a drama in the initial core, without more generic disquisitions.

However, halfway through the story, an unexpected turn in information and action takes the film on a roller coaster ride that is difficult to navigate.

Without revealing too much, let's say that what happens does not fit into anyone's head, even though it is totally real.

It is then that the designer has an attitude so disconcerting, so implausible, that

The Successor

sinks for a long time.

Legrand, director of the formidable

Shared Custody

(2017), one of the best physical immersions in gender and vicarious violence in recent cinema, seems to fall for extravagance instead of trying to offer a true study of the legacy, in the broadest sense. meaning: the pain for the past, and the terror of genetic inheritance and evil infection.

A crazy flight forward that, however, manages to escape thanks to another original twist in the script that, at least, makes it a story different from the others.

And then, as happened in his debut film, there is no longer so much drama as straight terror.

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The accuracy in the staging and editing of

Shared Custody

in this one is barely touched, and in a couple of moments, especially in the crying at the funeral, it cracks.

Even so, in the final moment, with an apparently open ending in terms of the story, it is precisely the planning and editing that are responsible for closing it firmly, and also with finality, culminating a slide of sensations between reflection and nonsense, between rarity and excess.

The successor

Director:

Xavier Legrand.

Performers:

Marc-André Grondin, Yves Jacques, Louis Champagne, Anne-Elisabeth Bossé. 

Genre:

intrigue.

France, 2023.

Duration:

112 minutes.

Premiere: March 22.

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