Léa Seydoux stars in Marie Kreutzer’s Cannes thriller ‘Gentle Monster’

Léa Seydoux plays Lucy, a concert pianist whose life is shattered by a police raid in Marie Kreutzer’s “Gentle Monster.” When her husband is accused of an unspeakable crime, Lucy must protect her son and confront how little she knows about the man she married. The thriller premiered at Cannes in May, where Seydoux said the role let her discover the story through Lucy’s perspective and express contradictory emotions without denying them. She has also said, “I love to express things without words,” in a conversation with Anne Thompson at this year’s festival.

The new trailer keeps the plot largely under wraps, centering on Lucy’s increasingly stricken expressions as further revelations make matters worse. One brief shot shows her looking bereft in an elevator, just before one of the film’s most striking revelations. David Ehrlich described the film as a tough, unflinching social drama about trust, love, and the painful shift from a rhetorical question to an urgent mystery. The story also confronts the fact that there is no “off button” for pedophilia, while suggesting there is no such switch for love either.

“Gentle Monster” is Kreutzer’s first film since “Corsage,” which received critical acclaim and was Austria’s submission for Best International Feature at the 95th Academy Awards. The cast also includes Jella Haase, Laurence Rupp, and Academy Award nominee Catherine Deneuve. The film opens in select theaters on Friday, October 30, then begins streaming on Netflix on November 18.