Kritiken

[Agnés is] driven by a swirl of emotions: sexual curiosity, hunger for self-destruction, and resentment of her controlling mother. Haenel conveys [Agnés'] mix of self-confidence and acute vulnerability, and Canet underplays the role of Agnelet so that one concentrates not on his charm but on the feelings he arouses in others. What transpires between Agnés, Agnelet, and the mother is too complicated to be described as a triangle—in this densely realized drama, it seems more like a gordian knot.

Most of the film, which stars the queen of French cinema, Catherine Deneuve, is pretty good, and shows its director, the veteran André Téchiné, in fine form. You leave the theater with only two strong impressions: one, its last twenty minutes fell apart badly and could easily have been cut from the work. And two, that the very strange scene in the middle (it involves a young white women performing an African dance to a white man she is attracted to) needs some explanation.

In an era in which art-house directors from Paris to Seoul have embraced extremities of form and content, Téchiné's smooth, proficient ensemble dramas seem to reek suspiciously of respectability. This is definitely the case with In The Name Of My Daughter... Téchiné is underplaying his tale of manipulation and betrayal to indicate the ways that gentility and prosperity so often gild the lily of human cruelty.

Agnès (Adèle Haenel) is the most compelling part of Mr. Téchiné's zippy and drifty interpretation of the events... Mr. Téchiné 's methodical storytelling covers more narrative ground than the drama requires, sapping the film's energy. A concluding return to the present, when Maurice is brought to trial, feels unnecessary and clunky. While by no means misfiring, Mr. Téchiné is definitely capable of finer orchestrations.

A colorful whirligig which twirls only sporadically, In the Name of My Daughter presents as a thriller about the Riviera casino wars of the 1970s, yet is front-loaded with greed, mother/daughter push-pulls, masochism, and tumbles from power. Campy courtroom testimony reveals French investigations into affairs of the heart other cultures only dream of. Can such a film be anything other than exciting? Yes. Maybe too many chefs flattened the soufflé.

The director, André Téchiné, has a keen eye for the Balzacian furies behind the cold formalities of business and the stifling mores of the provincial bourgeoisie. The movie's French title, "The Man They Loved Too Much," suggests its true focus: Maurice, the Machiavellian outcast who pulls the strings. The story's tension slackens when the action extends to later years, but by that time a dramatic feast has already been served.

[Téchiné's The Girl on the Train,] which is masterfully directed and gratifyingly complex, runs out of gas right when it ought to be revving up, stranding two great actors in a scenario that crosses the line from ambiguous into inconclusive. Téchiné's new film, In The Name Of My Daughter, suffers from exactly the same problem—which is immensely frustrating, because it's likewise terrific right up until it's forced to address what actually happened (or, in this case, what didn't happen).

Téchiné is an unpretentious dramatist who employs unobstrusive camerawork and editing—only an alternatingly lush and desaturated color scheme stands out here—so that his actors may tell the tale... The film gradually unveils Agnelet's sociopathy even while refusing to outright accuse him, though the last act feels rushed and forced...

Once Agnès vanishes, the account turns perfunctory, as Téchiné skips forward 30 years to courtroom scenes offering little more than the sight of a frail, gray-haired Deneuve, as Madame Le Roux, denouncing Maurice (with Canet unconvincingly aged). But for most of the run time, Téchiné exhibits masterful control, dispensing psychological details even as he withholds narrative ones. And Haenel's impassioned performance never lets us forget the woman around whom the machinations play out.

Téchiné's demonstrates a capacity for problematizing gender dynamics, where Maurice's objectification of Agnès is complicated by a sense that he may have a sincere and genuine interest in her well-being... The final 20 minutes, however, completely stagnate In the Name of My Daughter's mysteries through a "thirty years later" epilogue that operates as if out of narrative obligation rather than necessity.

An overcooked, often ridiculous mid-1970s true-crime saga. Despite my better judgment, I was hooked, pulled in by the scenes with Haenel—whose intensity here recalls the ferocity of Isabelle Adjani in her best performances from the '70s and '80s—and Catherine Deneuve, her hair dyed a blinding, Hitchcock-blonde white, as Haenel's casino-operating mother.

André Téchiné's absorbing In the Name of My Daughter allows an unknown actress, Adèle Haenel, to create the most complex female character of recent memory, a young woman whose desire for and belief in her own independence is betrayed by her sexual obsession for a manipulative man who destroys both her and her mother (Catherine Deneuve).