Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2018: #13. Benoît Jacquot’s Eva

Eva

Several months after premiering his Don DeLillo adaptation Never Ever out of competition in Venice 2016, the prolific Benoît Jacquot returned to work with Isabelle Huppert (with whom he has collaborated five times prior, including The Wings of the Dove, The School of Flesh, False Servant, Keep it Quiet, and Villa Amalia) for a remake of Joseph Losey’s 1962 film Eva, which starred Jeanne Moreau (Jacquot recently remade Bunuel’s The Diary of a Chambermaid, which also starred Moreau). A psychological thriller based on the novel by James Hadley Chase, concerns a Welsh novelist who is seduced by a gold digging French woman. Of note, co-star Gaspard Ulliel previously played Huppert’s son in Rithy Panh’s 2008 film The Sea Wall. The film also reunites Jacquot with the lead from Never Ever, Julia Roy.

Release Date/Prediction: Production began in early 2017, and Eva was anticipated as a possible Fall 2017 release. Jacquot hasn’t competed in Cannes since 1998’s School of the Flesh, and the presence of Huppert could have made Cannes 2018 a lucrative possibility, however, since Jacquot is also moving ahead with Mr. Casanova starring Vincent Lindon, Eva was locked down with an early domestic release and became a fine plume for Berlin 2018’s edition, a third time for Jacquot competing for the Golden Bear (following 2012’s Farewell My Queen and 2015’s The Diary of a Chambermaid).