It becomes obvious that even if he survives the ordeal, Graff’s life will never be the same again.Īs Graff’s image as a spoiled playboy solidifies with the public, his company, his friends, and even his family begin to question his loyalties. As the story spreads, the details of Graff’s private life come into the open. Then, just as quickly, he is kidnapped by masked men, clearly professionals, who cut off one of his fingers and send it to his family as leverage for a ransom they can’t pay. An opening montage establishes his lifestyle with rapid and simple snapshots: getting out of cars, leaving a business lunch early, meeting his mistress in an anonymous apartment. With great visual economy, an understated script, and a gripping, convicted performance from lead actor Yvan Attal, Rapt elides the personal and political strife of scandal into something more cohesive, more ambiguous, and ultimately, more real.Īttal plays Françoise Graff, president of a top French firm who keeps a high public profile even as he squanders his wealth on gambling, sport, and extramarital affairs. Like those other publicized cases of private sins inadvertantly exposed, Rapt provokes an ambivalent mixture of sympathy and disgust, recreating with elegant realism both the selfishness of the central figure and the callousness of the media and its audience.

Based on the real-life story of Baron Édouard-Jean Empain, it tells of a prominent businessman whose debaucherous private life is exposed in the course of his kidnapping. Just after Weinergate, with the memory of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s alleged offenses still fresh in our minds, Belvaux’s film provides plenty of cinematic food for thought.

Lucas Belvaux’s new drama Rapt comes at a timely moment for American audiences.

Rapt film