Custody - Dir. Xavier Legrand

A late addition to 2017’s autumn festival circuit, Custody went on to pick up awards at Venice, San Sebastián and Miami film festivals on its way to UK cinemas. Expanding his Oscar nominated short, Xavier Legrand writes and directs a story of the bitter fight between two parents and their two children caught up in the torrent of animosity.


We first meet Miriam (Léa Drucker) and Antoine (Denis Ménochet) at a private hearing with a judge to discuss custody rights for their children following their irreparable split. Joséphine (Mathilde Auneveux) is just a few weeks shy of her 18th birthday after which she will be free to make her own choice, but 11-year-old Julien (Thomas Gioria) would be happy to never see his father again.

It’s a long and intense opening in which Legrand seemingly establishes credible arguments from both sides and sympathy for both parents (to varying degrees) whilst Legrand’s tight framing of the six people around a table helps to maintain the fraught intensity of the hearing. After several minutes of discussion, the truth remains elusive and the judge’s predicament is less enviable than before.


When the judge elects to grant Antoine time with his son every other weekend, so begins Legrand’s perfectly controlled disclosure of the truth. Petty point scoring leads to manipulation, manipulation leads to confrontation. It’s a (largely) gradual and precise escalation of events that play out in lengthy sequences, akin to carefully constructed set pieces. At Joséphine’s birthday party, Legrand’s camera circles around characters and across the dance hall as whispers are exchanged and the focus shifts back and forth between characters. Legrand uses their concerned expressions to heighten our dread; we know something is wrong but Legrand keeps us in the dark for as long as he can. So gripping are these set pieces that they almost mask a subplot quietly transpiring in the background.

Drucker and Ménochet are both excellent; she is quiet but authoritative whilst he’s impetuous and dejected. Debutant Thomas Gioria, with a mop of blonde hair brings to mind Jérémie Renier’s Igor from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s La Promesse: both share a resilience and determination that defies their young years.


What’s fiercely notable in hindsight is that the nature of the relationships between characters never really changes; it’s only the perception of the relationships that changes, which in turn asks questions of why that initial perception was formed in the first place. I’ve been attempting to replay the opening inquisition in my mind, deliberating whether that initial perception was the result of shrewd writing from Legrand or indicative of my own unbalanced viewpoint. I suspect it’s an amalgamation of those two things, but it’s a quandary that’s at the very heart of the story. We are wired to try and weigh up all of the information given to us, but sometimes we can overthink it and miss the truth hiding in plain sight.

As a film about voices not being heard and not being believed, Custody was distinctly relevant when I saw it at BFI London Film Festival in early October, and remains so now. This is one of the best releases of the year so far so don’t miss it; just make sure you don’t need to rush off as the credits roll as you may need a few minutes to get your breath back.






CUSTODY was release in UK cinemas on Friday 13th April 2018

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