Abuse of Weakness

Abuse of Weakness (French: Abus de faiblesse) is a 2013 semi-autobiographical film written and directed by Catherine Breillat. The film had its world premiere on 6 September 2013 at the Toronto International Film Festival.[3] In the U.S. the film was acquired by Strand Releasing and given a release in December 2014.[4]

Abuse of Weakness
Film poster
Directed byCatherine Breillat
Produced byJean-François Lepetit
Screenplay byCatherine Breillat
Based onAbuse of Weakness
by Catherine Breillat
StarringIsabelle Huppert
Kool Shen
Music byDidier Lockwood
CinematographyAlain Marcoen
Edited byPascal Chavance
Production
company
Flach Film
Iris Films
Arte France Cinéma
CB Films
uMedia
Distributed byRézo Films (France)
Release date
  • 6 September 2013 (2013-09-06) (TIFF)
  • 12 February 2014 (2014-02-12) (France)
Running time
105 minutes
CountryFrance
Germany
Belgium
LanguageFrench
Budget€4 million[1]
Box office$171,660[2]

Plot

Maud Schoenberg (Isabelle Huppert) suffers a cerebral hemorrhage that leaves her paralysed on one half of her body. After a year of intense therapy Maud, a director, begins to work on a new project. After seeing an interview with a con-man, Vilko Piran (Kool Shen), she immediately asks him to star as the lead in her film, about a lower-class man who falls in love with a famous actress, eventually beating her to death. Vilko accepts but insists that he see Maud as much as possible before filming begins.

Cast
  • Isabelle Huppert as Maud Schoenberg
  • Kool Shen as Vilko Piran
  • Laurence Ursino as Andy
  • Christophe Sermet as Ezzé
  • Ronald Leclercq as Gino
  • Fred Lebelge as TV presenter
  • Tristan Schotte as Antoine
  • Daphné Baiwir as Hortense
  • Dimitri Tomsej as Louis
  • Nicolas Steil as Louis' father
  • Jean-François Lepetit as Jean-Paul

Production

In 2007, Breillat met notorious conman Christophe Rocancourt, and offered him a leading role in a movie that she was planning to make, based on her own novel Bad Love, and starring Naomi Campbell.[5] Soon after, she gave him €25,000 to write a screenplay titled La vie amoureuse de Christophe Rocancourt (The Love Life of Christophe Rocancourt), and over the next year and a half, would give him loans totalling an additional €678,000.[6] In 2009, a book written by Breillat was published, in which she alleged that Rocancourt had taken advantage of her diminished mental capacity, as she was still recovering from her stroke.[7] The book was entitled Abus de faiblesse, a French legal term usually translated as "abuse of weakness" and was the basis for the movie of the same title.[8]

Reception

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 85%, based on 34 reviews, with an average score of 6.7/10. The site's consensus reads, "Abuse of Weakness' fact-based plot proves that truth can be stranger than fiction -- and provide grist for compelling character studies."[9] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 77, based on 16 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[10]

gollark: I can make it *not* return and just loop doing nothing, but that would be sillyful.
gollark: Unless you already have a skynet.listen thing running, actually.
gollark: No.
gollark: (`dofile` does return things, yes, so it should work)
gollark: I gues you could use `dofile`, but it may be slightly eeeevil to do so.

References
  1. "Abus de faiblesse". JP's Box-Office.
  2. "Abuse of Weakness". Box Office Mojo.
  3. "Abuse of Weakness (Abus de faiblesse): Toronto Review". THR. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  4. Lindsay, Taylor. "Exclusive: Strand Releasing to Distribute Catherine Breillat's Personal Drama 'Abuse of Weakness'". Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  5. Secher, Benjamin (5 April 2008). "Catherine Breillat: 'All true artists are hated'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  6. de Mallevoüe, Delphine (18 February 2012). "Christophe Raconcourt sort de prison et prépare un livre". Le Figaro (in French). Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  7. Groves, Don (9 August 2010). "Breillat's new twist on Sleeping Beauty". SBS. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  8. Roxo, Alexandra (7 July 2011). "A Conversation with Catherine Breillat (THE SLEEPING BEAUTY)". Hammer to Nail. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  9. "Abuse of Weakness (2014)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 1 December 2019.
  10. "Abuse of Weakness Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 1 December 2019.
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