Blimey, yet more French cinema. I'm beginning to wonder whether the Curzon bought a job lot...not that I'm complaining there has been some great french cinema in recent years. But will Rapt be classed among them?
It is certainly a fresh take on the standard kidnapping yarn. Neither rich industrialist Stanislas Graff (Yvan Attal) or his wife and family bargain on quite how a life changing experience his kidnapping will be for start.
*potential plot spoilers* Aside from the more usual trauma - these kidnappers show they mean business by cutting off one of Stan's fingers and posting it before even so much as writing a ransom note - there are all the sordid little details of his past which the police and, disasterously, the press unearth.
If the affairs and love nests aren't bad enough there is the expensive gambling habit which means that Stan isn't quite as rich as the kidnappers think which, inevitably, leads to some questioning whether the whole thing hasn't been elaborately staged.
Rapt is a film about reputation and also how much our life is truly our own. As the weeks of Stan's captivity pass there is a tussle between his family, the police and his fellow board members as to how to respond to the kidnappers demands in the light of what has been revealed. Loyalties and feelings are tested and it all comes to a head when Stan is eventually returned to his family.
Traumatised by the events and discovering quite how much his life has unraveled, the much-longed for freedom is not quite what he imagined. And the man returned is not quite what his family or business associates imagined either.
There is much that makes Rapt a good thriller such as the various attempts by the police to outwit the kidnappers on the handovers including one quite tense car/train chase. But what raises it above the ordinary is the human story that interweaves it and the ending which creeps up on you. Attal pulls off both the arrogant business man and the terrified victim. Anne Consigny also puts in a good turn as the supportive wife pushed to far.
Not that Rapt isn't flawed, it did feel long for its two hours running time which is kind of ironic considering the title. Nonetheless it will undoubtedly be one of my memorable films of the year.
What the professionals say:
Peter Brashaw in The Guardian gave it three stars describing it as an unusual take on the traditional kidnap drama saying of director Lucas Belvaux: "Rapt is his best film so far – an intriguing, elegant movie that is a knight's-move away from being a conventional thriller."
Time Out London gave it four stars concluding: "It’s obvious Belvaux is having fun in his impassive portrait of a poor little rich man undone by not only fortune and fate but his own misdeeds and blind arrogance; but the director is never so indulgent as to spoil what is a finely mounted thriller"
Rotten Tomatoes has given it 100% from five reviews which is quite low (number of reviews that is so will monitor it to see how it changes)
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