RAPT
Written & Directed by Lucas Belvaux
Produced by Patrick Sobelman, Diana Elbaum & Sebastian Delloy
Released by Lorber Films
France. 126 min. Not Rated
With Yvan Attal, Anne Consigny, André Marcon, Françoise Fabian, Alex Descas, Gérard Meylan & Michel Voita
 

An understated French thriller that is not particularly thrilling, Rapt is conveniently relevant at a time when the exploits of corrupt businessmen and politicians litter the headlines. The film is based loosely on the life of Baron Ếdouard-Jean Empain, a Belgium-French millionaire held for ransom in 1978. The updated Empain is playboy executive Stanislas Graff, played quietly by Yvan Attal. Graff’s daily dose of quick meetings, high-stakes gambling, and beautiful mistresses is suddenly severed one morning when he is bound, gagged, and kidnapped by an enterprising gang of criminals from Marseilles. Also severed is his finger, which is sent to the police as an unambiguous signal that the men mean business.

Since Graff is the chairman of a high-profile company, public attention naturally turns to his disappearance. But sympathy and curiosity quickly turn to outrage as shrewd detective work reveals a very scandalous profile of the abductee. His reserved but steadfastly loyal wife (Anne Consigny)—who accepts their separate bedrooms and distant lives as unavoidable accessories of privilege—and his teenage daughters (one of whom spends the film in an almost lobotomized silence) need only to turn on the television to find out about the millions Graff has lost in casinos or spent on his lusty liaisons. Though the script only barely touches on this, it’s fascinating to imagine how a devastated family—be it the Strauss-Kahns, the Madoffs, and so on—reconciles heartbreak with the simultaneous realizations of ultimate betrayal.

The straightforward storytelling of a procedural tempered with a genteel, almost sleepy pace of a British television series contributes to the film feeling quaintly out of time. The scenes are bathed in 1970s yellow tones, and the performances are—sometimes distractingly—serious, without even a wink or self-awareness. Only Graff’s mother, who combines everyday French insouciance with the stereotypical emotional paucity of the wealthy, stretches coolness and reserve so far that she functions as the film’s only vaguely comical note.

Though none of the characters is humanized effectively enough to tug at our heartstrings, the knowledge that the end of Graff’s harrowing affair can only bring him back to a betrayed family and a disillusioned public triggers our sympathy, but, still, that doesn’t put the audience quite on his side. Except for a beard and beaten expression, Graff does not come home a changed man. And it’s the choice between rooting for a rogue or making excuses for a horrible crime that serves as the film’s only takeaway. Yana Litovsky
July 8, 2011