Screening at The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Unifrance's annual series Rendez-vous with French Cinema, Friday, March 10, 9:30 pm and Sunday, March 12, 5:45 pm (Walter Reade Theater, New York City)
Nora (Agathe Bonitzer) is a cold, stern, and arrogant looking young woman who is just starting a new job at a firm that specializes in mergers and takeovers. Serge (Jean-Pierre Bacri), her father, knows all of the business partners, including Barsac (Lambert Wilson) and Prévôt-Parédès (Pascal Greggory). In various ways, they give her a hard time. But despite their actions she manages to turn around a big account of a Belgian client (Yannick Renier) and humiliate a colleague who was her only real competition in the company.
How did Nora manage to dash her father's hopes that she would not turn into a lover of power and wealth? By an intense yearning to succeed, no matter what. After telling Nora to stay away from him, Serge's other daughter Maya (Julia Faure) does her best to capitalize on her sister's decline in the family circle. Also trying to control Nora is Barsac's wife Solveig (Isabelle Huppert).
French writer and director Pascal Bonitzer succeeds in his mission to
depict the rapacious behavior of the greedy and cynical souls who are the winners in the game of capitalism. He also reveals secrets to be the toxins which ravage and savage all those who gather them and use them for to harm others.