La Syndicaliste review – Isabelle Huppert powers a shockingly bleak true story of corruption

Isabelle Huppert brings a mix of her trademark steeliness and a lesser-seen vulnerability and fear to La Syndicaliste, a harrowing true-crime drama following the case of Maureen Kearney, a labour activist who found her life turned upside down after uncovering dangerous corporate secrets. It’s the kind of paranoid thriller that exposes the dark heart of corporate, legal, and governmental institutions, leaving you with little but fury and fear come the end. While the film as a whole is not nearly as propulsive as it should be, the story it tells by the end is one that is hard to shake.

We open in 2012, with Kearney (Huppert), the chief union rep for the 50,000 employees of French nuclear giant Areva, fighting a losing battle to change the misogynistic hiring and firing practices of the firm. Soon, though, she’s deep into conspiracy territory, with a whistleblower from energy firm EDF giving her papers proving that France intends to sell its nuclear know-how to China and undercut thousands of French jobs. It’s information that neither the corporate overlords nor the government want her to have, and so they launch a campaign of intimidation and harassment, the darkest moment of which is an actual break in to Kearney’s home by a masked assailant, who mutilates and sexually assaults her.

Horrifyingly, the “punishments” don’t end there, from continued harassment to the police in charge of her case not just disbelieving her but actively taking her to court on trumped-up charges of lying. It’s a relentless barrage of misery, and Huppert is excellent at showing just how debilitating, both physically and spiritually, this process is. Even her moments of triumph (there’s a strong running theme of Kearney rapidly reducing men to a state of gibbering rage simply by having the temerity to be a woman who won’t shut up) are tinged with fear, and Huppert guides us masterfully through this contradiction.

There are moments of light within the bleakness, especially in Kearney’s relationship with her endlessly loyal and dependable husband Gilles (Gregory Gadebois), but this is a grim tale, mostly handled with a careful fury. Though this raging against the machine is cathartic, La Syndicaliste can be remarkably slow in places – its actual runtime barely squeaks past the two hour mark but it does feel longer, and it culminates in a pretty weak final scene. The stop-start pacing might feel fitting for a film about a criminal case that was under review for six years before finding no satisfactory conclusions, but it’s not a gripping story structure.

La Syndicaliste’s primary strength outside of Huppert, then, lies in its status as a true story. There are points where you almost can’t believe what’s happening – the notions of police harassment and government/business corruption are hardly novel, but the sheer level of petty cruelty on display is shocking in practice even if you’re aware of it in theory. In some other territories, La Syndicaliste is being released as The Sitting Duck, a crude yet ominous title. If such a moniker can be conferred upon a high-flying activist with connections to CEOs, organised labour, and even the French president, then our chances against the amoral capitalist steamroller suddenly don’t look so good.

La Syndicaliste is released in UK cinemas on 30 June.