Sunday 27 February 2022

La Promesse (2020 Creator Anne Landois)

Landois was indeed a writer / showrunner on Spiral. So gripped were we by the opening of this thriller about child kidnapping that we watched all six hours of it in one day.

Sofia Essaïdi and Elisa Ezzedine make a great job of portraying the older and younger versions of the investigating detective, whose father Olivier Marchal has been so consumed by an earlier case it's driven him to death. And in taking on a new one, the detective is led back to her father's, and her home town which holds unpleasant memories.

With Lorànt Deutsch, Jules Houplain, Lili Aupetit, Natacha Régnier.

I love the two girls who escape. The first forces open the door of the van she's been kidnapped in and jumps out of it whilst moving - then runs away and hides in the woods. The second one has the enormously bright idea of hanging her necklace round the neck of a visiting cat, but in a brilliant bit of writing, it loses it immediately. Then she manages to free herself but causes a fire. Finally, she does manage to elude her captor, though almost dies in the attempt. This is gripping stuff.

Made for TF1. The woods of the Landes region in south-west France are used marvellously well.





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