The great French icon Isabelle Huppert was honored with the TIFF Tribute Performer Award at the Toronto Film Festival this week, and her latest movie, All About Corinne became one of the earliest sales out of TIFF for U.S. distribution with Cohen Media Group buying it. There is a reason for all of this: It’s really a charmer and features one of Huppert’s most memorable recent turns.
Taking its English-language title as a kind of literal riff on the Oscar-winning 1950 film All About Eve, the film has a similar story angle. Huppert’s Corinne Maclou is a veteran French movie extra with bigger ambitions for speaking roles as she befriends Sandrine Kiberlain (playing herself), the star of the latest movie on which Corinne is working. The difference is this is set in the world of the French film industry, not Eve’s Broadway, and Corinne is much older than Anne Baxter’s Eve, who made trouble for Bette Davis’ huge star Margo Channing. But you get, to use a French word, the homage.
Having its North American premiere at TIFF after its world bow at Locarno, All About Corrine comes from writer-director Marc Fitoussi, who collaborated with Huppert on 2007’s La Vie D’Artiste, 2014’s Paris Follies and notably an episode of the hit series Call My Agent, a show in which Huppert and a number of other famous French movie icons also showed up skewering their own images. Fitoussi directed six episodes of the series, and this film seems to take the same idea of mixing a fictional character with the real deal. In All About Corinne, a who’s who of French cinema play themselves, and not in mere cameos. Along with Kiberlain, the list includes Anne Marivin, director Emmanuelle Bercot, Diane Kruger, Ana Girardot, Vincent Dedienne, Thomas Jolly and Hugo Becker.
At the center of it all is the completely fictional Corinne, who Huppert plays to the hilt. She is a small-time actress who makes a living as an extra, a profession where these day workers are overlooked and underfed — in other words, just there to fill a space and stay out of the way. Corinne has a bit of a reputation as being too aggressive, the extra always handing out her resume to stars and directors she confronts on the sets. We soon learn, though, that outside of the studio, she is an unheralded actress (except by herself), proudly appearing in a local play by a Chilean playwright that she says was taped and hopes will turn up on television someday. Of course it won’t, but one day after being told the scene where she is supposed to be standing at an office copier is being discarded, she tries to befriend the film’s star Kiberlain, who immediately knows of her reputation and tries to resist her overtures. But one thing leads to another, and Corinne manages to get her resume and link to the play into Kiberlain’s hands.
When a fellow extra on another film suggests to Corinne that she try opera or stage opportunities as a more civilized environment for extra work, she mentions a “Chilean” play now on stage with Kiberlain. Recognizing that it came from the link she provided, Corinne feels betrayed — the role she was born to play has been “stolen” from her . But Kiberlain, feeling a bit guilty but not apologetic for taking the role (“I am a major star,” she says), invites Corinne into her circle, soon even employing her as an acting coach after Corinne offers smart advice on how to play the role. When Kiberlain gets a new film to shoot in Morocco, she promises she will put in a good word for Corinne to the famous director Emmanuelle Bercot. Unfortunately, the film has been cast, but she offers Corinne the opportunity to be her wardrobe dresser. Things get quite interesting from here as Bercot doesn’t know what is in store for her.
Huppert’s subtle comedic talents are on full display here, just as through Corinne we also get to see her unleash dramatically as well. It is a wonderful role as she navigates life among all these real-life cinema stars and personalities in order to find her rightful place, as she sees it, in their company. Fitoussi, who also made a film championing the background players with The Extras, creates a witty and actually poignant look at the profession where real talent so often goes unrecognized and unappreciated. Corinne is one of those people bound and determined to keep trying against all odds to show she has the acting chops, but too often she stands in her own way. In Huppert’s hands this is no caricature but ultimately a moving portrait of a person who never stops believing in herself.
Among the cast deftly presenting fictionalized versions of themselves, particular standouts are Marivin as a frustrated co-star and Bercot as a director looking for inspiration in the act of creation of her next masterpiece.
Producer is Caroline Bonmarchand. The film opens in France next month.
Title: All About Corinne
Festival: Toronto (Gala Presentations)
Distributor: Cohen Media Group (U.S.)
Director-screenwriter: Marc Fitoussi
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Kiberlain, Anne Marivin, Emmanuelle Bercot, Diane Kruger, Ana Girardot, Vincent Dedienne, Thomas Jolly, Hugo Becker
Running time: 1 hr 53 mins