No Les Yay in this film
La Cérémonie is a 1995 film by Claude Chabrol, based on Ruth Rendell's 1977 novel A Judgement in Stone (itself inspired by the 1933 crimes of sisters Christine and Léa Papin). It is considered one of Chabrol's best films.
The film tells the story of a friendship between two lower-class women played by Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Bonnaire. The latter, Sophie, gets hired as a maid for a bourgeois family, the Lelièvres. Then she befriends the former, a postal worker, the angry Jeanne. Sophie, however, has difficulties working by Lelièvres as she can neither read nor count. Her work is mostly manual, but she also goes shopping for groceries. Her dysfunction results in a bitter turn of events for everyone.
It is a rumination on the relations between the well-off and accommodated and the unprivileged and disenfranchised. Chabrol himself called it "the last Marxist film".
Tropes
- Benevolent Boss: Deconstructed. The Lelièvres want to improve Sophie's living conditions; they send her to the oculist and they pay for it, and they offer to pay for her driving lessons. In particular, Melinda encourages the other members of her family to show respect for her. However, in spite of their efforts, they are naturally and unconsciously contemptuous toward her. Sophie resents them for this and in the end she takes revenge.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: Sophie is always calm and does not speak much. When Melinda understands that she is illiterate, Sophie threatens to reveal Melinda's pregnancy to her father if she tells others. Later, Sophie shoots Georges Lelièvre down and she takes part in the murder of the rest of the family.
- Big Fancy House: The Lelièvres have a big house which reflects their high social status and they hire Sophie to clean it.
- Blackmail Backfire: Melinda Lelièvre discovers that Sophie cannot read. She offers her help to teach the woman reading. Sophie is enraged about the disclosure and, as she is aware that Melinda is pregnant, threatens to tell her father. However, Melinda immediately tells her father about her pregnancy and the blackmail herself.
- Caught on Tape: The whole crime scene is recorded on Melinda's tape recorder. The police find the recording just after Jeanne's car accident.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Georges Lelièvre's hunting guns. He cleans them early in the film. In the end, Sophie and Jeanne use them to kill the whole family.
- Jeanne's faulty car battery leaves her stuck in the middle of the road with no lights as she is leaving the Lelièvres' house; she is promptly struck by another car and killed.
- Melinda's tape recorder. She receives it as a gift for her birthday. In the end, she uses it to record the opera TV programme and so it also records the murder scene and reveals Sophie and Jeanne's guilt to the police.
- Cut Phone Lines: Jeanne cuts the phone line of the Lelièvres' house before their murder.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The Lelièvres fire Sophie after she tries to blackmail their daughter Melinda. Sophie kills them all with the help of Jeanne.
- The Dog Bites Back: Even if they are well-meaning, the Lelièvres treat Sophie contemptuously, and Sophie's anger prompts her to shoot all four of them with Jeanne's help.
- Downer Ending: The whole Lelièvre family is killed by Sophie and Jeanne. Jeanne dies in a car accident. The police discover the murder, so Sophie is likely to be arrested soon.
- Dramatic Irony: The viewers are shown quite early that Sophie is illiterate, so they understand the mistakes made by the Lelièvres toward her.
- Dysfunction Junction: Sophie cannot read and Jeanne is angry at the whole world.
- The Farmer and the Viper: The Lelièvres want to help Sophie. When she tells them that she cannot read because she has no glasses (a cover for the fact that she is illiterate), they send her to the oculist and they pay for it. Sophie does not actually go to the oculist and buys non-corrective glasses. When Melinda Lelièvre discovers by chance that these are non-corrective glasses and she understands that Sophie is illiterate, it triggers a chain of unfortunate events which lead to the murder of the whole Lelièvre family by Sophie and Jeanne.
- The Film of the Book: The film is based on A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell.
- Going Postal: Played quite straight. Jeanne Marchal works at the post office and organises the murder of her friend's employers.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Jeanne envies the Lelièvres' wealth. In particular, she thinks that Catherine participated years ago in a model audition where she participated too, so she is jealous of Catherine's successful modelling career.
- Irony: The Lelièvres want to help Sophie, so they offer to pay for glasses when she pretends this is the reason she cannot read their messages (rather than because she is illiterate). This makes her more uncomfortable and ultimately leads to the Lelièvres' murder.
- Karma Houdini: It is implied that both Sophie Bonhomme and Jeanne Marchal might have gotten away with murder in the past.
- Laser-Guided Karma: For Jeanne Marchal who, after the mass murder, is killed by a car driven by the priest who dismissed her.
- Meaningful Name:
- Sophie Bonhomme means exactly Sophie Goodman. Also Sophie means wisdom in Greek.
- Jeanne Marchal reminds of Marshal (though it is spelt slightly different in French).
- Lelièvre means the hare. Should ring a bell in the context of the ending.
- Never Learned to Read: Sophie Bonhomme. She also has difficulties with the change at the shop.
- Odd Couple: Jeanne Marchal and Sophie Bonhomme. The former is usually angry while the latter is generally serene.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Jeanne acts like a child or a bratty teenager. She opens the Lelièvres' mail, she misbehaves with an old couple when she collects clothes, she pours chocolate on the Lelièvres' bed, etc. In the end, she takes part in the Lelièvres' murder.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Jeanne Marchal is the red oni (she is angry at everyone and very talkative), Sophie Bonhomme is the blue oni (she is always calm and does not speak much).
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Played lethally straight here.
- Shout-Out:
- Catherine and Gilles watch Les Noces rouges (a 1973 film by Claude Chabrol) on TV.
- The Lelièvres watch Don Giovanni on TV.
- Slobs Versus Snobs: A conflict between the family of a rich industrialist and their maid who gets the help of a poor postwoman. It culminates in the murder of the former by the latter.
- Sole Survivor: The whole Lelièvre family is murdered by Sophie and Jeanne and Jeanne dies in a car accident. Sophie is the only important character who survives, and she will likely soon be arrested for the Lelièvres' murder.
- Surprise Car Crash: Jeanne, at the end.
- Teen Pregnancy: Melinda is 20 and she has dated her boyfriend for a very short time when she gets pregnant. At first, she does not dare to tell her father.
- Untranslated Title: In English it is also La Cérémonie.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Rendell based A Judgement in Stone, the source novel, very loosely on the story of murderers Christine and Lea Papin
. Among the differences, the Papins were sisters, which Jeanne and Sophie are not.
