At 16 years old, Lise (Melissa Guers) is accused of murdering her best friend. As the trial starts, her parents (Roschdy Zem and Chiara Mastroianni) stand right by her side. But once her secret life is revealed in court, the truth becomes indistinguishable.
“I love you” means nothing. Everyone says “I love you”. A young girl called to the witness stand casually drops these disarmingly simple words that are enough to give one chills. That is a recurring feeling throughout this unusually precise courtroom drama, where words and their power are at the center of attention. In this case, the legal proceedings become the ritual of a society putting its own youth on trial.
“In a way, Demoustier’s film is an inverse coming-of-age film, interested in how a teenage girl develops when the most important years of development are stunted. The final images are telling and tragic.” —Film Inquiry
“What Demoustier has done here, and done quite successfully, is taken a basic mystery plot, like something out of a TV movie, and used it to ponder how each one of us could react to a ghastly crime, and how we expect others to react in turn.” —Hollywood Reporter
“Retains many of the merits of its source, similarly building an old-fashioned did-she-or-didn’t-she mystery… into a more probing, ambiguity-laced psychological profile.” —Variety
Locarno Film Festival
El Gouna Film Festival
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