Simone: Woman of the Century
2022 · Directed by Olivier Dahan
Original language: French
- drama
- history
The story
Simone Veil's life story through the pivotal events of Twentieth Century. Her childhood, her political battles, her tragedies. An intimate and epic portrait of an extraordinary woman who eminently challenged and transformed her era defending a humanist message still keenly relevant today.
What it’s like
Wide, glossy period frames give way to cooler, more restrained interiors as the story moves from wartime to the parliamentary chamber, with a lush orchestral score that swells through the big public moments and drops out for quieter scenes of family and grief. The camp sequences are grey and stark, shot with a hard, unflinching eye rather than lingering on gore, and the cruelty lands as weight rather than spectacle. Once the story reaches postwar France, the palette warms and the tempo loosens into domestic rooms, kitchen-table conversations and long, tense debates in government halls. Its emotional register is earnest and stately, a sincere tribute to a woman's persistence more than a meditation on loss. Expect a handful of harrowing scenes of Holocaust brutality and some discussion of antisemitism and abortion politics; there is no sexual content and little sustained gore. It suits a slow weekend afternoon or a history-minded evening, and it is for viewers who want a dignified, large-scale portrait of moral courage, moving at the pace of a classic biopic.
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