POUR ELLE (ANYTHING FOR HER)- (Fred Cavaye)

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POUR ELLE raises a somewhat cliched but nonetheless relevant question: does the end justifies the means? Moreover, is breaking the law justified in order to prove your innocence and reclaim your freedom? 

Lisa Aucler (Diane Kruger) is arrested and imprisoned for allegedly killing her boss. Her husband, Julien (Vincent Lindon), a schoolteacher is devastated and shocked. Through all the denial, and the guilt, and the diminishing hope that he has now that they lost in the final appeal, Julien eventually decides to hatch a plan to spring his wife from prison; and that is only logical, for a man who is running out of options will meditate on extreme measures.

He asks for advice from Henri Pasquet (Olivier Marchal), a man who's escaped from jail seven times, and has written a book about it. Pasquet advises him on the basics, saying that every prison has a key, and that Julien needs to find the right one. Of course this is metaphorically speaking, and I'm afraid the Hollywood remake took it literally, which is funny but not entirely inappropriate.

Julien draws a plan on his apartment wall about the escape, and he doesn't tell his wife about it, later on saying to her that had she known, she would have stopped him.

All these, Julien does out of desperation, seeing the grim fate of their young son not having a mother, and after a suicide attempt by Lisa. 

By the film's climax, a thrilling escape ensues as Julien and Lisa and their son Oscar dodge countless police en route to the airport, where they shall go to El Salvador (which I presume not to have extradition laws or else they wouldn't have picked it out of a hat).

Lindon is magnificent; by simply looking at him you'd read his character's suffering. Kruger is equally  noteworthy; her eyes reveal everything.

Going back to the moral questions raised, POUR ELLE merely presents the breaking of the law as a circumstance, an offshoot of murky legal procedures, and partly of bad luck. While it may have condoned (implicitly) taking the law into your own hands, it also just presents the bare truth that people who have everything to lose will risk everything, and that makes them powerful. 

RATING: 4/5


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