‘Madeleine Collins’ is a Knotty Exploration of A Dual Life [Venice Review]
Beginning with a dizzying one-shot that follows Judith – or is it Margot? – around a high-end clothing store before a fainting spell upends her shopping trip, Antoine Barraud’s “Madeleine Collins” is a laser-focused character study that literalizes a double-life, following Judith (a calculated Virginie Efira) as she attempts to balance seemingly having two husbands, two sets of children, two complete lives. Wisely withholding key information about how Judith came into this situation until the very end, Barraud’s film effectively grafts the tropes of Hitchcockian thriller onto a domestic portrait of a woman’s life spiraling out of control.