official description
Adapting Douglas Kennedy’s acclaimed novel – and retaining all its insight and tantalizing suspense – Eric Lartigau guides hot French star Roman Duris (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) to one of his best-ever performances. At once a portrait of a conflicted man and a sleek European thriller, The Big Picture counts as high-quality French entertainment – an escapist delight with substance.
Paul (Duris) works in investment banking, handling the savings of rich clients. It’s a career that affords him a magazine-perfect lifestyle that he shares with his wife and family. But he laments not having pursued photography, his real passion, and as financial demands and personal responsibilities continue to entrap him, his dream of becoming an artist slips further and further away. Paul is also tormented by a new and insidious jealousy; his wife has fallen under the spell of a rival and former friend. The ultimate agony is that this friend has, in fact, fulfilled Paul’s defining ambition and has become a successful photographer. Tormented by rage and envy, Paul pounces on a macabre opportunity.
Kennedy set his novel in the United States, but Lartigau and co-screenwriter Laurent de Bartillat have moved the action to France and Eastern Europe. The new setting offers a provocative landscape of secrecy and shifting identities. Once Paul finds himself in a remote corner of Europe where he knows no one and doesn’t speak the language, anything seems possible. Duris is especially good here, giving Paul the jittery energy of a man unmoored, but also proving himself capable of a deep, soulful presence.
Lartigau directs this material with both polish and urgency. The elements of crime and guilt unfold with elegance, but ultimately The Big Picture is the portrait of an artist on the run, escaping the shackles of conformity and embracing liberated selfhood. Paul emerges as a man coming into his own as a creator in this thrillingly intense film.
Cameron Bailey
Principal Cast: Romain Duris, Marina Foïs, Niels Arestrup, Branka Katic, Catherine Deneuve
Producer: Pierre-Ange Le Pogam
Executive Producer: EuropaCorp
Cinematographer: Laurent Dailland
Editor: Juliette Welfling
Sound: Pierre Excoffier
Music: Evgueni Galperine, Sacha Galperine
Production Designer: Olivier Radot
International Sales Agent: EuropaCorp
Production Company: EuropaCorp
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