“Connemara”: Alex Lutz adapts Nicolas Mathieu’s bestseller (and manages to bring a tear to our eye)

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Following a burnout, Hélène returns to her native region, reconnecting with her humble origins and a former love. A once-rising hockey star, overtaken like so many others by social failure. Starring Amélie Guyader, the adaptation of Nicolas Mathieu's eponymous novel interweaves the two eras with a touch of insistence. But Alex Lutz's impulsive and guttural direction erases these reservations. She takes the film on a superb journey, whose romantic power is strangled by harsh reality and accompanied by the fusional performances of Mélanie Thierry and Bastien Bouillon. When Lutz manages to make us shed a tear during Sardou's horrifying hit, we feel like the bet has largely paid off.