‘The Hit’ review: A gripping, feverishly presented French drama that explores incest with candor and emotion

As for his first standby feature, The hit (No frappe), writer-director Julien Gaspar Olivieri chose a subject so bleak that many filmmakers wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. However, this raw and honest incest drama manages to find a little light in the darkness, showing how it is possible to live with the traumas of sexual assault. Featuring a frenetic performance from newcomer Diego Murgia, who stars alongside César Award winner Bastien Bouillon, Gaspard Oliveri’s poignant debut reveals him to be not only a talented director to watch, but also one who is not afraid to tackle difficult scenarios.

The hit The film focuses on a troubled young man, Enzo (Murgia), who tries hard to find affection in the eyes of his father, Anthony (Bolone), as he is willing to ignore the worst thing a father can do to his son. Enzo spends much of the film in crushing denial, hoping that love will somehow emerge from this mess. He’s so vulnerable that you can’t help but feel his pain – even when he ends up inflicting that pain on others.

According to press notes, Gaspar Olivieri (who co-created the hit high school series, Those who blush) The story (co-written with Claudia Bottino) was partly based on his own life, which seems obvious given the emotional authenticity of his characters. Murgia’s portrayal of Enzo is the film’s breakout performance, though Roman Fringeli, who plays Carla, the 19-year-old’s older sister, is also a standout. Meanwhile, Bouillon continues a series of strong turns (including in birthday partywhich was screened in main competition at Cannes this year) and which begins in 2022 with Dominique Moll’s thriller Twelfth night.

The opening scene, shot by Martin Ritt in grainy close-ups, shows Enzo and Carla asleep listlessly in bed together, their bodies subtly rising and falling with each breath. It appears to be a happy moment between the two brothers, who share a close, if volatile, bond. But as the film progresses and we learn more about their childhood, this scene takes on a very different meaning: one in which closeness can breed both affection and contempt.

With parents no longer in the picture and Carla moving into college housing, it seems Enzo has his entire life ahead of him. It helps that he has a thriving and very loving relationship with his new girlfriend Laura (Héloïse Fall), whose parents run the go-kart race track that seems to be the main source of entertainment in the working-class suburb of Marseille.

But the state of independence that Enzo has achieved at such a young age is broken when his father returns home after spending five years in prison. A scene in which the two discuss Anthony’s future with his parole officer underscores the extent to which Enzo has become a family man, hiring his father to help sell kitchen utensils at local flea markets.

Bouillon creates a charming if menacing presence from the beginning, portraying Anthony as a father who has been out of the loop for a long time in terms of both family and civic life, yet still wants to be in charge. In one scene that foreshadows what’s to come, Enzo hides in a closet while his father brings a woman home from a bar, and witnesses some embarrassing and then off-putting sexual behavior. The final scene in which the boy climbs into bed with Anthony reveals much worse, although it takes Gaspard Oliveri some time to explain exactly what happened in the past.

What is the most moving? The hit — whose French title can mean both a body blow and a young murderer — is how she charts Enzo’s gradual awakening from a child still very attached to his father, often for terrible reasons, to an adult who finally steps back and sees the truth, at which point the shock is so overwhelming that it takes over. This happens during several explosive scenes in which Enzo attacks those who truly love him (his girlfriend, his sister, who wants nothing to do with their father), searching in vain for someone to suppress the suffering.

Murgia is a revelation here, playing a loose cannon who is also deeply wounded, like a beaten dog that sometimes shows its teeth and occasionally bites its feeder. The first moments of the drama, when Enzo does his best to please Anthony after he gets out of prison, offering to cook him dinner or lend him a few dollars, will almost break your heart. Because Enzo knows deep down that by getting closer to his father, he is also moving away from his own recovery. The constant push and pull between trauma and redemption is what makes The hit This is a powerful experience.