‘Wild Diamond’ Review: Agathe Reidinger’s Drama About a 19-Year-Old Girl in Thrall to the False Gods of Social Media and Reality TV Announces the Arrival of a Major Filmmaker
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Religion, Karl Marx said, is the opiate of the masses. Today, he would likely say that the opiate of the masses is fame — the desire for it, the things you have to do to get it, the fragmentary nature of it (the old “15 minutes” is now, in many cases, more like 15 seconds), and everything it’s supposed to bring you.
The new fame, the lusty fickle kind bred by social media, is at the center of “Wild Diamond,” a startlingly bold and true French drama that premiered today at Cannes.
It tells the story of Liane (Malou Khebizi), a 19-year-old glam trainwreck who lives with her mother and kid sister in the town of Fréjus in Southern France.
Liane’s entire existence is driven by her compulsion to connect with the up-from-nowhere apparatus of fame, the kind that transforms people on Instagram and TikTok — and, the subject of “Wild Diamond,” reality TV — into overnight spangly vessels of adoration.
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