La Syndicaliste

Basically here Isabelle Huppert playing an Irish woman; could they not find an anglophone actress for the role ?!?!?!?! Takes on BIG Biz and gets intimidated in the worst possible way short of murder

It looks like a semi-satanic ritual setup to make her see that she is trifling with forces she MUST leave alone ie the ability of huge money concerns to do whatever they please whenever they wish legal or otherwise and letting ordinary folks suffer as in losing their jobs etc etc

The treatment here is odd. I have no info about what Kearney was like but Huppert plays her as an hyperstubborn glacial character who seems rather removed from the daily and lives in her own world

If that is the way the real-life protagonist was really like then it is no surprise the cops did not trust her account. But really although it is not really intimated here; it would make sense that a concern with that kind of money and clout "owned" the cops legal system and Press on this one

And of course that makes it a lot more chilling if that is so; but should we be surprised?

• Isabelle Huppert is 70 years old here but plays a much younger woman successfully; the icy delivery is odd but maybe slavish to the original player of the tale; maybe reading the book this film is adapted from would clarify that fact

In the end it is a film about the brutality of the system; of the unbalance between the moneyed powers and the "peasants" and the fact that anyone who complains or sticks their head above the parapet is asking for a beating or here a ritualistic humiliation

The story is excellent what it says about Power spot-on; the treatment and portrayal not as good as it probably could have been is the feeling one is left with ... but it was a very messy event whichever way one looks at it.