The Cinematheque

Vancouver Premiere

One of the Top Ten Films of 2022

Cahiers du cinéma

Since the breakthrough of Stranger by the Lake in 2013 (a ​“Best of the Decade” selection here), Alain Guiraudie has done everything in his power to maintain, rather than smooth away, the edges of his taboo-breaking cinema. His latest is no exception. A disarmingly casual shuffle of genres, Nobody’s Hero takes on some serious subjects: the flux of national identity, the media-fuelled paranoia that trails terrorist attacks, the liberatory power and gendered control of sex—all in the shape of a comedy! Across a wildly modulated cast of characters—a jogging-suit-clad tech consultant, the two social pariahs he attracts into his life, plus his neighbours and a list of enemies—Guiraudie reshapes a community, one built on the uneven ground of charity mixed with prejudice. Made in the spirit of the early social satires of Renoir and Almodóvar, this is a film with the energy of Freud’s invitation to recognize dreams filled with distressing content as possible sources of wish-fulfillment.

In French with English subtitles

“A wonderfully humanist film in the end, for the great generosity it has towards everyone who steps into its frame … [Reminiscent] of 1930s Renoir like Le crime de Monsieur Lange.”

Edo Choi, Film Comment

“A wickedly insightful political comedy that has drawn controversy since its Berlinale premiere by playfully cutting close to the bone of a profoundly urgent topic: the Islamophobic paranoia ascendant in recent years in France and much of the Western world.”

Haden Guest, Harvard Film Archive