LA FILLE DE BREST/150 MILIGRAMS (Emmanuelle Bercot 2016)

The tireless Emmanuelle Bercot had an amazing year last year, winning Best Actress at Cannes for her performance in My King/Mon roi with Vincent Cassel and directing a prizewinning film about an at risk teenager, with Catherine Deneuve, Benoît Magimel, and young unknown Rod Paradot, who won a César. Now Bercot is back with another issue picture, about Dr. Irène Franchon and her long, hard, ultimately successful campaign against French Big Pharma to bar a killer drug. Again Magimel is back, and there is a unique central performance by Danish-born Sidse Babett Knudsen as the feisty Dr. Franchon. This is a movie in a class with Silkwood and Erin Brockovich. Its long string of sometimes numbing details win respect and a sense of joy when the gathering team of crusaders against money interests win the battle to save lives.