César Award–nominated actor Léa Seydoux returns to the screen in Marie Kreutzer’s emotionally charged drama Gentle Monster. The Austrian filmmaker, whose previous movie Corsage was Austria’s submission for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, writes and directs the story of concert pianist Lucy (Seydoux) who’s confronted with an accusation made against her husband (Laurence Rupp) that upends her world.
“I think most of us have hopefully not gone through what Lucy’s going through in the film,” says Kreutzer of Gentle Monster, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and made its US premiere at Telluride Film Festival. “But I think what everyone in every audience will have experienced in their lives is being disappointed by someone, being manipulated by someone, or someone not being what we thought they were.”
Seydoux (Blue Is the Warmest Color, Inglourious Basterds) portrays Lucy as a woman, wife, mother, and musician, in a narrative that centers the female perspective. “What I really liked about Lucy is that the story unfolds through her eyes,” she says. “I thought that made [the film] even more complex and human because she goes through different states of emotion. For me as an actor, it was something very interesting to play because there are so many layers.”
Read on for more about Gentle Monster, arriving on Netflix this fall.
Lucy (Léa Seydoux) and Eloise (Catherine Deneuve)
From director and writer Marie Kreutzer (Corsage), Gentle Monster tells the story of concert pianist Lucy (Seydoux), who has just relocated her family to a country house hoping to ease her husband Philip’s (Rupp) severe burnout. Before they have a chance to set up their new home, an early-morning police visit tears their life apart. Trapped between the man she loves and the fear of what he may have done, Lucy must face the situation alone as her world unravels. With a cast that includes Jella Haase (Kleo) alongside Academy Award nominee Catherine Deneuve (Indochine, Belle de Jour), Gentle Monster asks what we do when the person we love turns out to be someone we never truly knew.
Gentle Monster releases in select US theaters on Oct. 30 and will be available on Netflix in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand starting Nov. 18.
