Abuse of Weakness
Theatrical release poster
FrenchAbus de faiblesse
Directed byCatherine Breillat
Screenplay byCatherine Breillat
Based onAbuse of Weakness
by Catherine Breillat
Produced byJean-François Lepetit
Starring
CinematographyAlain Marcoen
Edited byPascal Chavance
Music byDidier Lockwood
Production
companies
Distributed by
  • Rézo Films (France)
  • Les Films de l'Elysée (Belgium)
Release dates
  • 6 September 2013 (2013-09-06) (TIFF)
  • 12 February 2014 (2014-02-12) (France)
  • 19 March 2014 (2014-03-19) (Belgium)
  • 1 December 2016 (2016-12-01) (Germany)
Running time
105 minutes
Countries
  • France
  • Germany
  • Belgium
LanguageFrench
Budget€4 million[1]
Box office$171,660[2]

Abuse of Weakness (French: Abus de faiblesse) is a 2013 semi-autobiographical film written and directed by Catherine Breillat. The film had its world premiere on 6 September 2013 at the Toronto International Film Festival.[3] In the United States, the film was acquired by Strand Releasing and given a release in December 2014.[4]

Plot

Maud Shainberg suffers a cerebral hemorrhage that leaves her paralysed on one half of her body. After a year of intense therapy Maud, a director, begins to work on a new project. After seeing an interview with a con-man, Vilko Piran, she immediately asks him to star as the lead in her film, about a lower-class man who falls in love with a famous actress, eventually beating her to death. Vilko accepts but insists that he see Maud as much as possible before filming begins.

Cast

  • Isabelle Huppert as Maud Schoenberg
  • Kool Shen as Vilko Piran
  • Laurence Ursino as Andy
  • Christophe Sermet as Ezzé
  • Ronald Leclercq as Gino
  • Fred Lebelge as TV presenter
  • Tristan Schotte as Antoine
  • Daphné Baiwir as Hortense
  • Dimitri Tomsej as Louis
  • Nicolas Steil as Louis' father
  • Jean-François Lepetit as Jean-Paul

Production

In 2007, Breillat met notorious conman Christophe Rocancourt, and offered him a leading role in a film that she was planning to make, based on her own novel Bad Love, and starring Naomi Campbell.[5] Soon after, she gave him €25,000 to write a screenplay titled La vie amoureuse de Christophe Rocancourt (The Love Life of Christophe Rocancourt), and over the next year and a half, would give him loans totalling an additional €678,000.[6] In 2009, a book written by Breillat was published, in which she alleged that Rocancourt had taken advantage of her diminished mental capacity, as she was still recovering from her stroke.[7] The book was entitled Abus de faiblesse, a French legal term usually translated as "abuse of weakness" and was the basis for the movie of the same title.[8]

Reception

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 85%, based on 34 reviews, with an average score of 6.7/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Abuse of Weakness' fact-based plot proves that truth can be stranger than fiction – and provide grist for compelling character studies."[9] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 77, based on 16 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[10]

References

  1. ↑ "Abus de faiblesse". JP's Box-Office.
  2. ↑ "Abuse of Weakness". Box Office Mojo.
  3. ↑ van Hoeij, Boyd (9 September 2013). "Abuse of Weakness (Abus de faiblesse): Toronto Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  4. ↑ Lindsay, Taylor (21 April 2014). "Exclusive: Strand Releasing to Distribute Catherine Breillat's Personal Drama 'Abuse of Weakness'". IndieWire. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  5. ↑ Secher, Benjamin (5 April 2008). "Catherine Breillat: 'All true artists are hated'". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  6. ↑ de Mallevoüe, Delphine (18 February 2012). "Christophe Raconcourt sort de prison et prépare un livre". Le Figaro (in French). Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  7. ↑ Groves, Don (9 August 2010). "Breillat's new twist on Sleeping Beauty". SBS. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  8. ↑ Roxo, Alexandra (7 July 2011). "A Conversation with Catherine Breillat (THE SLEEPING BEAUTY)". Hammer to Nail. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  9. ↑ "Abuse of Weakness (2014)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 1 December 2019.
  10. ↑ "Abuse of Weakness Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 1 December 2019.
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