Before Cosmopolis, Juliette Binoche Getting Ready to Live ‘The Life of Another’ for Testud Next Week

Dear 20-something female readers, imagine: your birthday party was a complete blast; Paul, the cute boy you just met, actually showed up and you can tell you’re already falling for him. When you wake up next to him he’s your husband, the father of your three children and 12 years have passed. You’re suddenly 37, in the middle of a divorce and you can’t remember a thing. That’s the terrifying premise of the directorial debut by French actress and writer Sylvie Testud. Life of Another (La Vie d’une Autre) is the sort of project that could add up to nothing more than a very long list of French actresses turned directors, but it actually carries a lot of promise when you have Juliette Binoche toplining the pic. Cineuropa reports that production begins next week.

First and foremost let’s detail the amazing cast, which I will summarize in one scream of adoration: Binoche! The always graceful actress will portray the central character, Marie, and is sure to be wonderful as a young woman searching for herself and her memories. The actress blew everyone’s mind at an early age with her performance in The Unbearable Lightness of Being from director Philip Kaufman. She has shined ever since, from The English Patient, to more recently Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy, for which she won Best Actress in Cannes. Binoche is even rumored to be considered in this year’s iteration of Cannes for her role in Polish director Malgorzata Szumowska’s Sponsoring.

But let’s not forget the rest of the cast. Marie’s love interest and future jaded husband will be portrayed by the provocative actor and director Mathieu Kassovitz. He emerged as one of the most promising directors of his generation with films like La Haine in 1995 and Amen in 2002. Despite a few strange choices (including, Babylon A.D), he’s still a prominent figure in French cinema. Last but not least, Aure Atika will join the cast as Jeanne, a close friend who must cope with the effects of Marie’s amnesia. If you have nothing to watch as you read this and enjoy the blessings of a Netflix account, you can have a good laugh and checkout her performance in OSS 117, a faux-vintage comedy about an asinine spy in Cairo (trailer).

Gist: The film is adapted from a novel by Frédérique Deghelt, a TV journalist who found her true calling as a novelist and received stellar reviews for La Vie d’une Autre. Her exploration of love and family life through the prism of amnesia was praised for its tenderness and lucidity, both qualities we hope to find again in the film.

Worth Noting: Testud, isn’t any actress behind the camera, her smart cast choices already made that clear. Born in Lyon (my hometown!), the young actress has a thing for the awkward and outcast roles, for example as one of the killer sisters in Murderous Maids (trailer). In 2004, she won the César for Best Actress in the ingenious Fear and Trembling (trailer), adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name. She has such a distinctive face and voice that even as a supporting role, she stole the light away from Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose, and it was one of the only pleasant moments in the film. She is also a successful writer, for example with her novel Gamines published in 2006 and soon adapted as a film by Eleonore Faucher, in which she played a character inspired by her own life. Her new job as a director doesn’t mean the end of her acting career and we will see her soon in L’Ordre et la Morale, directed by aformentionned Mathieu Kassovitz.

Do We Care?: At first glance, we could be dealing with a typical story about the meaning of love and the unavoidable effects time has on relationships. Nevertheless, the fact that the main character has forgotten half her life and tries to put the pieces together with a fresh look on her family makes us hope for touching twists and turns. And when this main character is played by Binoche, there are virtually no excuses not to see it. Even if you’re called Gérard Depardieu.