The Unknown Girl ★★½

THE latest film from France’s Dardenne brothers, The Unknown Girl, is frankly a disappointment.

The directiors/writers are significant film-makers in Europe and have been jointly responsible for several acclaimed films centred around the ongoing theme of social justice.

2014’s Two Days, One Night with Marion Cottilard playing a worker fighting to retain her job was particularly strong.

Having loved another recent slice of social realism, veteran English director Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake last year, I had high expectations for the Unknown Girl. which was selected for official competition at last year’s Cannes film festival.

Alas, it wasn’t to be. While the film has the elements of another strong, focused narrative, the low-key tone and approach sucks all the emotion and life out of the characters and story.

The main problem is the central performance by Adele Haenel. Her acting is technically fine but the fault lies in the approach to the character. Whether by direction or her own initiative, Haenel plays GP Jenny Davin is such a detached, unemotional manner that you fail to connect with her on any level.

The problem is greatly compounded when the character occupies almost every scene of the film. Some might argue the performance is totally in keeping with her character who tells her trainee early in the film that you have to keep your emotions in check to be an effective GP.

The Dardennes appear to be lauding Davin’s decision and steadfast commitment to serving the medical needs of the working class, yet there is no evidence of that commitment, any passion or any enjoyment at all in the way Davin is presented. The character doesn’t appear to have an emotional being at all, even in her quiet solitary moments.

A single scene, where she reacts in a low-key manner to the sentiments from a cancer patient, is nicely done. If this tone continued throughout, we would have had a better film.

The film contains a mystery that begins with Jenny refusing to open the door of her practice to a late-night caller. The next morning, she learns the young woman has been found dead nearby. Her deep sense of guilt (although it’s hard to sense this from the performance) leads her to take responsibility for burying the “unknown girl” and delve into the circumstances of her death.

Of course the unknown girl of the title can refer to Davin herself and that’s the film’s fundamental problem.