The Origins of Evil

 

French director Sébastien Marnier's The Origin of Evil (L'origine du mal) takes the nastiness of patriarchal legacy film and television (Knives Out, Secession, etc.) and distills it into a concentrated intoxicating potion. Superbly composed and hypnotic.

The picture opens with film star Laure Calamy getting ready for a shift in a fish-packaging plant. She's an assembly-line worker in a company that seems to employ only women. One night after work, she gathers the courage to dial a number and make contact with a local business magnate (Jacques Weber), identifying herself to him as his daughter Stéphane.

Next we see, she is taking the ferry to the island of Porquerolles to meet Serge; his wife, Louise (Dominique Blanc); and other members of his household.

"Unsettling" does not adequately describe the unfiltered animosity at the gathering but Stéphane doesn't appear deterred by the cold, rudeness of daughter George (Doria Tillier) or the off-putting officiousness of housekeeper Agnes (Véronique Ruggia). In fact, Stéphane's lack of discomfiture is an early indication that all is not as it seems in this wickedly sly movie.

Serge has recently suffered a stroke and is prone to fainting spells. He's secretive and suspicious and is looking for an ally. Louise is a Baby Jane-grotesque, whose sole aim appears to be spending Serge's money. She cares little about her husband's welfare or much of anything else, apparently.

George, who seems to care even less for her father than her mother, manages Serge's many enterprises, and housekeeper Agnes keeps George informed of household intrigues. The only family member who seems to be above the toxicity is college-aged Jeanne (Céleste Brunnquell), whose counting the days before she'll be free of her family.

Sébastien Marnier, who also wrote the screenplay, has crafted for his cast -- especially Calamy -- a maddening tour de force of greed and misery, slowly revealing the dimensions and depths of the family's morbidity as the picture slowly burns.