2015 Cannes Critics’ Panel Day 10: Pulling the Plug on Michel Franco’s “Chronic”

It’s a Tim Roth lead Un Certain Regard jury that awarded Michel Franco with the highest honor of the section. Michel Franco has moved up the Croisette, debuting his Daniel and Ana in the Directors’ Fortnight section in 2009, and the UCR in 2012 with the equally disturbing After, Lucia. Naturally landing an In Comp spot, Chronic fittingly tapped Roth to play the caretaker protag in the Mexican filmmaker’s fourth feature. As our Nicholas Bell mentioned in his review, “Franco’s bleak predilection for misanthropy shows no signs of waning,” and my guess is that the oft-mentioned comparisons to Haneke made this too jarring of a portrait at the tale end of the fest.

Check back tomorrow for our final grades. Click on the grid below for a larger version.