This award-winning French film is an adaptation of a Balzac novel of the same name. It is the story of a young working class poet called Lucien Chardon (Benjamin Voisin), who tries to make a new life in Paris after a scandalous affair in his country hometown with an aristocratic lady (Cecile de France). He is gauche and naïve, and desperate to fit in with the aristocratic set there, but he can’t possibly, and they instantly spot him as a social climber.

He thinks getting his poems published by Gerard Depardieu’s character Dauriat will help him rise in the estimation of others, but is promptly told he is a nobody who needs to create some notoriety around his character in order to get ahead.

He is fortunate enough to pick up a mentor in the form of the morally questionable journalist Lousteau – deliciously played by Vincent Lacoste. He and all the other journalists of that time in Paris are paid to run stories and reviews with the desired slant of the buyer.

Lucien wants to have some credibility as an artist but, at the same time, having taken up with an equally poor actress, he needs to earn money, so throws himself into his career as a journalist getting paid to trash other people’s work.

Lost Illusions is a great costume drama about media manipulation, which is relevant today. People now, just like those in Balzac’s novel, don’t always realise they are being fed someone else’s agenda rather than, necessarily, the truth.

Adapted for screen by Xavier Giannoli, he uses narration to include the original author in the film. Giannoli also directs. It’s an easy, entertaining watch with great performances.

Ailie Hunter
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