In “Karma,” most things just go around, around, and around again, an occasionally engrossing but extravagantly drawn-out affair given a surface of extravagant garbage by Marion Cotillard and Denis Menoche’s all-out performances. Directed by Guillaume Canet with the same obsessive genre sheen that he brought to the global hit Never Tell a Whole Two Decades ago, the film is a combination of grim psychological thriller and ripely humorous melodrama, with an eerie and elusive twist. It begins with the mysterious disappearance of a child in Spain and eventually crosses the border to a cult-like, secretive and definitely incestuous commune in southwestern France. But the storytelling is so padded and repetitive that this 149-minute film is by no means escapist, and at the same time difficult to take completely seriously.
“Karma,” which premiered out of competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, will be released in France in October this year and is expected to do healthy business domestically. In France, it is the last film made by the national golden couple, Canet and Cotillard, before their separation in 2025, and it also has the added element of attracting tabloid-level attention. However, internationally, the film’s distribution prospects largely depend on Cotillard. Cotillard is tasked with the heaviest dramatic role as the broken, otherworldly protagonist who bridges the film’s two realms in an unlikely relationship.
Her wild-eyed performance, which ranges from dreaminess to terror to stunned submission, is at its most honest here. Menoche, who could never be more morose as a vile commune leader with unspeakable control over the heroine, has appeared in a broader range of, pulpier films overall than his co-stars, but “Karma” clicks when these two sensibilities sporadically converge.
The film begins with a blissful sunset scene in a remote country house in Catalonia. From outside, Benoît Debie’s camera zooms into the room, finding Frenchwoman Jeanne (Cotillard) and silver fox’s Argentinian partner, Daniel (Leonardo Sbararia, also seen at Cannes this year in Almodovar’s Bitter Christmas), sharing a spliff and a slow dance. Enjoy the happy and relaxed moments of two charming people that can only be found in Karma. Immediately, I noticed that something was wrong with Jeanne’s behavior and overall demeanor. Often distracted and anxious, she spends an inordinate amount of time with her beloved six-year-old godson Mateo, much to the growing consternation of his parents.
One afternoon, while caring for Jeanne, Mateo suddenly disappears. Her story of falling asleep during a field trip to a local lake and waking up to find him gone doesn’t add up at all, especially since his blood was found on a nearby rock. Still, it’s hard to doubt the sincerity of her love for the child, and when she soon becomes a runner as well, it’s clear there are larger, darker forces at work in this story. At least one of them is Marc (Menoche), a priest and general leader of a large, closed religious group in France that police encountered during their investigation. It turns out that Jeanne lived there before moving to Spain.
As the commune progresses, the Kumbaya atmosphere fades and the bleakness of being imprisoned by a vibrant personality increases, with daily routines and rituals dictated by Mark and followed by residents of all ages, from infants to the elderly, who are all related to one another by blood. The inbreeding-related disorder is dismissed by Mark as a “challenge from God,” but Mark grimaces when the officer coldly asks if he’s a little too hard on God. (Humor is in short supply here.) Menoche often uses his vulnerable side to gentler or even contradictory effect, clearly relishing the opportunity to play a full-on cuckoo villain, while also making Malku a truly frightening figure. Behind the physicality of his slow, heavy steps and the gaze of his pale, blank eyes, there is a creeping maliciousness.
But once it’s established that Mark is the architect of the evil going on here, the movie plods along over time. Daniel, Jeanne, and the cops (who had little interest in the interrogation revealing this Gallia-Jonestown residence, but whatever) all unravel the mystery piece by piece from one end to the other, uncovering much of the same information that becomes more and more obvious.
A tense, B-movie mindset may be in Karma’s favor, but despite co-writer Simone Jacquet’s extremely bad set-up, Kane chases fame here as well – obscuring the film’s more visceral mission behind the sombre musings on trauma and mental decay, the beautifully autumnal, eternally cloudy gloom of Debbie’s pictures, and the planty visceral echoes of Yoderis’ dooming score. Cotillard, at least, lends the film an air of hard-earned anguish, but he ultimately fails to glean much real-world social or philosophical meaning from his depiction of extreme, insane group dysfunction, and the film ultimately does too little to justify its sweeping reach.
