‘Simone: Woman of the Century’ Review: Olivier Dahan’s Lavish but Mawkish Biopic of Simone Veil
variety.comJessica Kiang In 2008, French politician Simone Veil became only the sixth woman ever inducted into the Académie Française, an august institution tasked with the regulation of the French language.
As a newly minted “immortal” — the unofficial name given to the Académie’s 40 members — she was presented with a sword that bore three engravings: the motto of France (“liberté, egalité, fraternité“), that of Europe (“Unis dans le diversité“) and her Auschwitz prisoner number, which remained tattooed on her arm until her death in 2017.
The sword glints briefly in Olivier Dahan’s “Simone: Woman of the Century” and though its symbolism is apt for such a crusading figure, it also reflects the film’s shortcomings: this is a reverential, ceremonial biopic content merely to inscribe Veil’s achievements across the surface of history, ornamenting a remarkable legacy, rather than exploring it.
Dahan works to the same fragmentary, triumph-and-tragedy template he employed in “La Vie en Rose,” for which Marion Cotillard won an Oscar, and in “Grace of Monaco,” for which Nicole Kidman did not.
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