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The Crazies (2010)

A fast-paced zombie-ish horror thriller that mostly delivers

Director Breck Eisner remakes a 70s political horror film from George A. Romero in which a small country community is stricken by a toxine that drives people crazy, thus creating a zombie-ish apocalypse that the military has a hard time trying to contain.

The pluses: 1. The quality of the storyline and the fast pace at which it unfolds, it particular in the remarkably good middle section 2. The effective and thrilling horror scenes, which make the most of the various settings and elements of a typical Midwest environment (the barns, the garden fork, the harvester, the highway diner, etc.) 3. The nuance with which the infected ones (the "crazies" of the title) are depicted: not all of them are threatening as the toxine reacts differently from one person to another, and danger equally comes from the non-infected folks battling for their lives or from the military.

The minuses: 1. The derivative nature of the film as pretty all its motifs have always been seen numerous times on screen 2. A lack of character development: Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell form a loving couple, they don't seem to have any trouble whatsoever when the story opens, so the emotional impact of the film is lowered by the fact that they have no personal conflict to solve (apart from surviving the hell they're in, of course) 3. A few (forgiveable) clichés, cheap effects, and plot holes

Verdict: The Crazies isn't remarkable by its originality, yet it is a very enjoyable thriller that delivers almost all you could expect from a zombie flick.

Haters (2021)

Not worth being called a film

French teenagers' idol Kev Adams stars as a Youtube influencer who tries to confront his top 10 online haters. This storyline merely serves as a pretext for a tiresome series of 10 lurid and unfunny sketches, in which all of France's movie & TV comedians (Franck Dubosc, Elie Semoun, Fred Testot, Philippe Lacheau... as well as JCVD himself!) compete for the most preposterous cameo ever. There is definitely a blatant lack of professionalism in all aspects of this enterprise: sloppy writing, awful video cinematography, flat editing, over-the-top or fake acting (starting with Kev Adams')... The original idea (an exploration of internet trolls' motivations for being so hateful) had some potential and might have given rise to an interesting satire of our times, but director Stéphane Marelli and writer Romuald Boulanger never even start thinking about really exploiting. A total disaster that absolutely nothing can redeem.

Suzanne (2013)

Some very good moments but too much of a patchwork

The story: Suzanne (Sara Forestier) is a French working-class girl raised by a loving widowed father (François Damiens) along with her sister Maria (Adèle Haenel). A single mother at a very young age, she meets the wrong guy in town, a seductive petty criminal (Paul Hamy) she immediately falls for. She soon leaves her job to spend more time with her lover, starts to neglect her son... Suzanne's life is about to sink really hard.

The story behind the story: Suzanne is Katell Quillévéré's 2nd film after Love Like Poison (Un Poison violent) in 2010. Since then, she has directed an outstanding drama about heart transplant, Heal The Living (Réparer les vivants).

The pluses:

• A couple of great (and I mean really great) moments: when Suzanne's son calls her by her name rather than Mum (those who saw the film will understand what sequence I'm referring to), the way she hears of a bad news within her family...
• Solid acting from lead role Sara Forestier, and even better one from Adèle Haenel as Suzanne's faithful younger sister.

• Very original if not always compelling storytelling, letting the most spectacular events offscreen and showcasing more mundane but still very evocative moments of Suzanne's life.

The minuses:

• The downturn to the fragmented & elliptic storytelling I mentioned before: jumping from one vignette to another, I had the feeling of missing too much of the characters' lives & interactions to root for them as much as I should.

• While the film spans over 25 years or so, the depiction of the 80s or 90s is rather poor: the clothes, the cars, not to mention François Damiens' ludicrous fake hair when he's supposed to be young. This may sound like a detail, but I thought it undermines the veracity of it all.

• The story is rather interesting, but I'm still not really sure what point Katell Quillévéré wanted to make here (if there was ever a point to be made).

Verdict: Overall, I enjoyed watching this touching family saga, but I felt Katell Quillévéré's unquestionable talent may have been better served with a more focused story such as in Healing The Living.