The Biggest Camel: Klifa Recruits Huppert to Spoof the Bettencourt Affair
Thierry Klifa, who continues to work some of the most notable grand dames of contemporary French cinema, including Nathalie Baye and Catherine Deneuve, courts Isabelle Huppert as the headliner of his latest feature, The Richest Woman in the World. The film is a fictionalized account of Liliane Bettencourt, the L’Oréal heiress who lost control over her fortune when she was deemed unfit to manage it thanks to being swindled by Francois-Marie Banier, a photographer convicted of abuse of weakness in his relationship to Bettencourt (she gifted him nearly one billion dollars). The situation brought to light other shocking offenses, such as tax fraud and illegal political donations to Nicholas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign. Klifa forgoes the national political angle in this somewhat pared down approximation, changing names and circumstances to create what plays like an entertaining but glossy caricature of the real-world events. As Bettencourt’s former lawyer stated, “Liliane was rich, she was beautiful and she was bored to death,” and thus prime for ruination.
Marianne Farrere (Huppert) is the richest woman in the world. Inheriting the cosmetics company created by her father, which she maintains control over, she lives in the lap of luxury with her husband (Andre Marcon), who runs the company’s board. Her daughter Frederique (Marina Fois), who married a Jewish man (Mathieu Demy) against her family’s wishes, is somewhat at odds with Marianne, but tries to assist where she can. As a way to improve her mother’s public image, she arranges for an interview and photo shoot with a posh magazine, “Selfish.” But photographer Pierre-Alain (Laurent Lafitte) recognizes an opportunity with the bored billionaire, and seduces her with his outspokenness. Soon, the two of them are two peas in a pretentious pod, with Marianne financing his artistic endeavors. But the more Pierre-Alain receives, the more he desires, and soon, Frederique sees fit to intervene.
Huppert, looking absolutely fantastic, seems to be reveling in the glamorous haute couture she dons as a bored, bigoted businesswoman, an imperious oligarch someone she seemed destined to portray. She’s reunited with her Elle (2016) co-star Laurent Lafitte as an aging gay playboy who charms her out of her finances for his own gain. It’s a Huppert reunion for many of the cast members, including Andre Marcon (Things to Come), Raphael Personnaz (The Scapegoat, 2013), Yannick Renier (Private Property, 2006), and Marina Fois (Paris Follies, 2014; The Sitting Duck, 2022). However, many of the supporting characters are merely representative reactionaries to the strange insanity of Marianne and Pierre-Alain. Together, they’re a match made in hell, but with Huppert, who feels a bit too young and ferocious to be a true composite of Bettencourt at this time in her life, Klifa simply heightens her needs and abilities to reconstruct her as a woman who is almost immediately reawakened by the hedonistic excitement inspired by a charming con-artist, whose queerness she not only embraces but champions.
The foppish Lafitte isn’t exactly a charmer, which is close to the toxic reality of Banier—it’s difficult to see how anyone could be taken in by his rowdy charisma, but it seems in Marianne’s world, vulgarity is the one element missing from her sterile, highly controlled world. As a major highlight, Klifa gives us an unforgettable gift in showcasing Lafitte plying Huppert with poppers on a bopping dance floor.
But such moments of novel perfection feel somewhat limited in the muted affair Klifa unveils, where the most shocking moments involve the revelation of the Farrere clan as a viper’s pit of Anti-semitism. When some xenophobic articles written by Monsieur Farrere from the 1940s are unearthed, he’s forced to step down from the board, forcing him to appoint his Jewish son-in-law to save face. This seems to be the major catalyst in the clan’s undoing here, as Frederique, at the behest of the emotionally invested butler (Personnaz), files claims of abuse of weakness against Paul-Alain, assisted by secretly recorded conversations released to the press (Yannick Renier). It doesn’t quite pack the same wollop as the true life insanity, but Klifa includes a lot of the strange details in passing (such as Marianne’s plan to adopt Paul-Alain after the death of her husband, which would allow him to bypass Frederique and inherit everything).
Huppert is, as always, a supremely captivating presence, but the film itself packs all the punch of a high profile cable soap opera. Hichame Alaouie (Summer of 85, 2020) has some fantastic shots of her, but for such a limited scope, the narrative flesh lacks the human connective tissue which made this so tantalizing, including the emotionally estranged rift between mother and daughter, as well as Marianne’s cold marriage to a man this film also insinuates was likely gay (and nursing an obvious crush for his butler, a rather stoic Personnaz, who is forced to don an off-putting blond dye job).
The ever dependable Fois does what she can as the pious, polar opposite of her mother, but there’s nothing innately jarring about these dull, miserable elitists beyond Lafitte crashing into their midst like a horny bull in a designer china shop. Fun, but not nearly as devious as it could have been, The Richest Woman in the World is an odd curiosity piece, but worth the price of admission alone to see Huppert, a bored, worldly vampire allowing herself to be drained by a desperate sycophant.
Reviewed on May 19th at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival (78th edition) – Out of Competition. 121 Mins.
★★½/☆☆☆☆☆
