Cannes Review: ‘Histoires Parallèles’ Starring Isabelle Huppert and Vincent Cassel

Isabelle Huppert is no stranger to the Cannes Film Festival, and her newest film, Histoires Parallèles, was a hot ticket during week one of the international fest. The French drama, called Parallel Tales in English, was produced and directed by Asghar Farhadi and is loosely based on Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog: Six.

This ensemble drama stars other beloved French actors, including Vincent Cassel, Virginie Efira, and the grand dame of French cinema, Catherine Deneuve (in a small but noteworthy role). The film is a Paris story. It’s set in the French capital and opens with an all-too-common Parisian experience: an altercation on the Paris metro. Following a pickpocketing incident, a hero chases the thief and saves the day. But no good deed goes unpunished, as they say.   

Huppert plays Sylvie, a writer who is zany, scattered, and talented. She has a concerning level of clutter in her home and an unfortunate mouse problem. Books are shoved and crammed into every nook in her house, and a mouse has given birth to a litter of mice in a corner of a kitchen cabinet. Sylvie follows a woman named Anne whose face reminds her of her mother: “magnetic and beautiful,” she says of the woman who bears a strong resemblance to her.    

Sylvie recalls memories of her girlhood in Paris and reflects on the way her family was ripped apart by her mother’s affair. Her father bought a telescope so he could watch his ex with another man. “Then,” says Sylvie to her agent (Deneuve), “he committed suicide.” Her agent asks, “Did he really?” And Sylvie replies wanly, “I wish he had.” 

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Anne works across the street from Sylvie, in the very Parisian apartment where Sylvie was born. She finds this fascinating – the woman’s resemblance to her mom, and the fact that her mom and she once lived there. (She also bears a resemblance to designer Stella McCartney at certain angles.) Anne works as a sound engineer in the apartment-turned-sound-studio. She shakes creaking bed frames to simulate the sound of lovemaking, and she walks up steps in high heels to imitate the click-clack shoe sound in film and television. 

We see Paris through a particularly rainy and waterlogged lens throughout the film, which is a very accurate depiction of the city. In the rain, Paris sparkles, adding an extra layer of cinematic flair. Sylvie clacks away on her typewriter in the apartment, while wearing peasant tops and smoking cigarettes. She’s an eccentric, modern-day Parisian bohemian who wears bangle bracelets, gaudy rings, and naps on a lumpy couch with woven pillows. Her niece disapproves of all the smoking, asking Sylvie, “Are you okay if you die of lung cancer?”

Her niece is pregnant through the use of a sperm donor, and Sylvie can’t seem to wrap her head around it. It’s the old and the new in a timeless generational culture clash: not understanding the other’s actions, yet, to each, their actions are perfectly normal and in step with their era (smoking and use of a sperm bank, respectively). Sylvie remarks on the pregnancy, “This is how girls have babies now. They don’t make love — they go on a website and order sperm, like my niece, and nine months later there’s a baby.” 

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When Sylvie steps on broken glass in her hoarder-like apartment, the Cannes audience inside the Debussy theater sharply inhaled as she examined the damage and plucked broken glass from her feet. The audiences at Cannes are famously reactive – from loud booing to joyful, lengthy standing ovations. The sharp intake of breath was among the audience’s biggest reactions at Cannes. Histoires Parallèles boasts a wonderful cast, but the story needed tightening and more propulsion to stand out at the festival. The script was clever, and there were some good laughs, but it still doesn’t grab the viewer the way other films at this festival have.

This said, there are far worse ways to spend an afternoon than watching the brilliant Isabelle Huppert work her magic on the big screen. Watching a cinema icon like Huppert is a treat, regardless of script or film quality.