‘All to Play For’ Review: Virginie Efira Ignites a Vibrant, Enraging French Family Drama
variety.comJessica Kiang Apparently determined to prove herself francophone cinema’s most inexhaustible precious resource, Virginie Efira once again lights up the screen prior to burning it down in a role that, after Justine Triet’s “Sibyl,” Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta” and Rebecca Zlotowski’s “Other People’s Children,” is of a type she has come to define: the strong-willed, smart fortysomething woman chafing against her society’s conformist expectations.
Delphine Deloget’s debut “All to Play For” features one of Efira’s more straightforward incarnations of this dramatic type — fewer sly kinks, no arch winks.
But she is no less riveting and lovely for it and in Deloget’s confident, gentle grip, she turns in one of her most committed performances, all the more moving for its commitment to valorizing the kind of woman seldom treated on screen with such respect and compassion.
The woman is Sylvie, introduced to us while mid-shift at her job in a busy Brest nightclub venue on a typically chaotic, sweaty night.
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