Beloved and respected auteurs Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne don’t seem like the kind of filmmakers who would make a wrong step, but this past spring their latest, “The Unknown Girl” underwhelmingly landed at the Cannes Film Festival. The response was muted, and it was something of a surprise given that the Dardennes are usually warmly embraced by cinephiles on the Croisette. But they took the criticisms to heart, and actually re-cut the movie, dropping seven minutes from the version that screened in the south of France.
And now the first international trailer for the film (sorry, no subs) also acts as a new introduction. Starring Adèle Haenel, Fabrizio Rongione, Olivier Gourmet, and Thomas Doret, the film sounds like a mystery riff on “Two Days, One Night,” following a doctor who decides to find out the identity of a young woman she turned away, who later turned up dead. Here’s the official synopsis:
One evening, after closing her practice for the day, Jenny, a young doctor, hears the doorbell ring but doesn’t answer it. The next day, the police inform her that an unidentified young woman has been found dead close by.
There’s no U.S. release date yet for “The Unknown Girl,” but Sundance Selects will be releasing the picture, and I’d place a good bet on it popping up at TIFF and NYFF this fall.