SYNOPSIS
In the 1930s in Paris, Madeleine Verdier, a young, penniless, and talentless actress, is accused of the murder of a famous producer. Helped by her best friend Pauline, a young lawyer, she is acquitted on the grounds of self-defence. A new life of fame and success begins, until the truth comes out.
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"François Ozon is no stranger to the Festival. A true stylist – and a chameleonic one at that –, Ozon has surprised us for many years with his exercises in genres. His movies have ranged from musicals, to literary adaptations, erotic thrillers, comedies and more. The Crime is Mine, his 23rd film, is in a much lighter vein than his latest films. It is reminiscent of Ozon’s older films, 8 Women and Potiche and one could even say that if forms, along with these two movies, a trilogy, mostly about women.
Ozon had the idea for the film during the lockdown, he wanted to make something light, all the while tackling things that concern us today, such as power dynamics and the status of women. As he said in an interview with Variety: “The Crime Is Mine is ultimately about the triumph of sorority. Obviously, it echoes what’s been happening in the last few years in the western world with a new wave of feminism”. The result is a joyful courtroom drama, with a feminist edge.
Set in 1935 Paris, The Crime Is Mine follows two young women: a struggling aspiring actress and her unemployed lawyer best friend. The supporting cast includes actors as famous as Dany Boon, Fabrice Luchini, and André Dussolier, but the two young women in the leading roles, Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Rebecca Marder, really steal the show. With the help of Isabelle Huppert, who plays a Sarah Bernhardt-like former silent cinema star, they create a vibrant ensemble whose cadence is reminiscent of the 1930s American comedies of Ernst Lubitsch and Frank Capra.
Like Anatomy of a Fall and Saint-Omer – the film that opened last year’s edition of the Festival – , The Crime is Mine revolves around a woman accused of a crime – and this is hardly a spoiler given the trailer and the title of the film!–. What these three films have in common is that they dramatize, not so much their female protagonists’ crimes as the gender biases women experience at the stand. But Ozon’s courtroom drama does this in a much lighter vein, and in contrast to her counterparts, Ozon’s heroin is proud to say: The crime is mine! At the stand, she delivers an impassioned plea for equality, asking for the right for women to conduct their careers and lives without constraints, in all freedom and all equality: “N’est-il pas possible, [she says], en 1935, de mener sa carrière, sa vie de femme, sans contraintes, en toute liberté, en toute égalité ?” Luckily, things have changed, but have they really?"

(from the introduction to the film by Stéphanie Ravillon, Senior Lecturer in French & Francophone Studies)