I normally use the chosen English title for non-English language films in this space, but the one the producers hit upon for this French thriller, The Sitting Duck, sounded too much like something Jerry Lewis would have directed, and though I’m aware French cinephiles adore Lewis, it seems highly inappropriate in this case, so I’m sticking with the original French title, which translates as “The Trade Unionist.” That’s more fitting, if perhaps a bit too generic for the sexual politics on display, since the protagonist is the union representative for the employees of Areva, the huge French engineering company that builds nuclear power plants, mostly in Europe, though they did have something to do with the Fukushima Daiichi Plant that melted down in 2011. In fact, the movie opens that same year—not in Japan, but rather in Hungary, where female workers at an Areva plant are demanding better pay and benefits and their French representative, Maureen Kearney (Isabelle Huppert), is staunchly defending them against their staunchly sexist boss. Kearney is an actual person, and she is able to stand up to these chauvinists because the president of Areva, Anne Lauvergeon (Marina Foïs), is a woman who made it to the top the hard way. Unfortunately, the disaster in Fukushima and other matters conspire to unseat her at the next board election and she is replaced by the less sympathetic Luc Oursel (Yvan Attal), who, it turns out, is in the pocket of a wealthy investor trying to steer Areva’s Chinese connections to a rival company, which would mean a huge loss of jobs for Areva. Kearney gets wind of this via a whistleblower and contacts the government minister in charge of such matters, and then all hell breaks loose.

The thing is, these political intrigues aren’t really the subject of the film, which is just as well since the director, Jean-Paul Salomé, sucks at pacing. It’s difficult to get a handle on the real-life ramifications, be they legal or ethical, of Oursel’s machinations when the facts are rammed up against one another. All we know is that they’ll be bad for the people Kearney represents. The only thing these scenes succeed in doing is present her as a middle-aged, upper middle class woman with a thing for heavy makeup, high heels, and hairstyles better suited for someone 15 years younger who is also fiercely dedicated to doing the right thing, regardless of personal cost. Her pursuit of her boss in the media and the courts results in phone threats and stalking that finally culminate in a home invasion-cum-sexual attack that leaves her wounded and traumatized. And that’s where the movie literally begins (and begins twice more during the film’s two-hour run time). As it turns out, the police don’t really buy the story, and it’s revealed that Kearney has been raped in the past and is under the care of a psychiatrist. They say her testimony about the attack doesn’t add up, and she is eventually labeled a “madwoman” in the press. 

Though the investigation into the attack and the subsequent did-she-or-didn’t-she implications create tensions that draw the viewer into the story, there’s still a lot that gets in the way. Salomé’s already established habit of making it difficult to follow the line of intent sometimes results in mixed signals: Are we supposed to agree with the police and think Kearney made it all up? Though her husband, Gilles (Grégory Gadebois), stands by his wife, it sometimes seems like he doesn’t, which isn’t Gadebois’ fault but rather the way Salomé jerks the story around in an attempt to manipulate the viewer’s expectations, and that’s unfair in a movie which purports to be based on a true story. What Kearney goes through is horrific—she is basically raped three times, once in actuality, and twice psychologically by the justice system. It’s a classic tale of the victim being blamed for her victimization, and while I was totally fascinated with the way it played out, I myself felt played out after it was all over. 

In French and English. Opens Oct. 20 in Tokyo at Bunkamura Le Cinema Shibuya Miyashita (0570-6875-5280).

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