{"id":36082,"date":"2025-10-29T10:02:55","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T09:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/?p=36082"},"modified":"2025-10-29T10:06:29","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T09:06:29","slug":"the-richest-woman-in-the-world-a-controversial-film-inspired-by-the-bettencourt-affair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/the-richest-woman-in-the-world-a-controversial-film-inspired-by-the-bettencourt-affair\/","title":{"rendered":"The richest woman in the world: a controversial film inspired by the Bettencourt affair"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thierry Klifa’s latest film, presented Out of Competition at the last Cannes Film Festival and released in theaters on October 29, aims to make audiences laugh with a story heavily inspired by the Bettencourt affair. The result is divisive, even if the performances of the two main characters, played by Isabelle Huppert and Laurent Lafitte, are widely acclaimed.<\/p>\n

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The richest woman in the world, with her hand on the loot<\/b>…<\/p>\n

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The title (and subtitle) of the latest film by director, journalist, and screenwriter Thierry Klifa <\/b>(Les rois de la piste, Tout nous s\u00e9pare, Une vie \u00e0 t’attendre…), presented Out of Competition at the last Cannes Film Festival<\/b> and released in theaters on Wednesday, October 29,<\/b> sets the tone: this comedy, loosely based on the Bettencourt affair<\/b>, is not subtle.<\/p>\n

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Comedy rather than tragedy<\/h3>\n

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Rather than faithfully retelling a true story that has already been the subject of a Netflix documentary series<\/b> (more soberly titled The Bettencourt Affair) released in 2023, this time the aim is to make people laugh… The film thus chooses to focus on comedy rather than tragedy, even though the latter is also present in this proven case of abuse of weakness. The victim was Liliane Bettencourt, heiress to L’Or\u00e9al, who was considered the richest woman in the world by Forbes for ten years and died at the age of 94 on September 21, 2017.<\/p>\n

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For even if the authors invoke \u201crespect for privacy, the memory of the dead and the reputation of the living<\/b>\u201d and the fact that \u201ctheir subjective view of the events reported is mixed with elements of pure fiction from their imagination,\u201d everyone (except those who have lived in a cave for the last ten years) will have understood the film’s source of inspiration.<\/p>\n

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The heart of the script?<\/p>\n

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Played by Isabelle Huppert, always impeccable in the role of a stuffy upper-class woman, Marianne Farr\u00e8re is the wealthy heiress to a veritable empire, the cosmetics group Windler, the cinematic double of the world’s leading luxury goods company, L’Or\u00e9al.<\/p>\n

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Abuse of weakness<\/h3>\n

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Like the real Liliane Bettencourt, the jaded heroine falls for a character who is brilliant, impertinent, and completely unscrupulous, the photographer and writer Pierre-Alain Fantin, played by the talented Laurent Lafitte, who himself played another wealthy figure on the big screen for Netflix, a certain Bernard Tapie. Everyone will of course recognize his \u201creal-life\u201d model: the intriguing Fran\u00e7ois-Marie Banier, sentenced in 2016 to four years’ suspended imprisonment and a fine of \u20ac375,000 for abuse of weakness.<\/p>\n

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Pierre-Alain Fantin’s antics will thus shake up the daily life of this \u201cpoor, wealthy but disenchanted grandmother,\u201d a revisited version of \u201cthe poor little rich girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The entertainer, with hints of a platonic gigolo (who prefers men, incidentally), promises his new friend to help her \u201cunlock everything that is locked inside her,\u201d while she responds with gratitude, \u201cthanks to you, it’s as if I’m living again.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The affair could have ended there if it hadn’t turned into reprehensible behavior<\/b>, taking advantage of the vulnerability of the \u201cunworthy\u201d old lady…<\/p>\n

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When you love, you don’t count the cost…<\/h3>\n

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As a true believer in the adage \u201cwhen you love, you don’t count the cost,\u201d Marianne Farr\u00e8re showers her prot\u00e9g\u00e9 with financial largesse<\/b>, much to the displeasure of her husband Guy (played by Andr\u00e9 Marcon<\/b>) and her daughter, alias Marina Fo\u00efs<\/b> (alias the real Fran\u00e7oise Bettencourt<\/b>), whose demure appearance and thick glasses are unambiguous clues.<\/p>\n

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The butler (Rapha\u00ebl Personnaz<\/b>) is a modern version of the one in Downton Abbey, loyal among the loyal and protecting his employers better than anyone else…<\/p>\n

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Except that one element complicates the scenario, namely the political past of Marianne Farr\u00e8re’s husband, which the family has no desire to see splashed across the front pages… The troubled past of Andr\u00e9 Bettencourt,<\/b> born in 1919 and deceased in 2007, had itself been mentioned in the media. In his twenties, he was a member of La Cagoule, a far-right movement (to which Eug\u00e8ne Schueller, the founder of L’Or\u00e9al, also belonged), and then collaborated with the anti-Semitic newspaper La Terre Fran\u00e7aise. He later referred to these as youthful mistakes.<\/p>\n

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A divisive version<\/h3>\n

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Ultimately, it is easy to imagine that this version of the Bettencourt affair will not be to the liking of her surviving relatives, even though the director speaks of \u201ca moving family story, with its secrets, its buried past, and a historical context that is still too little explored in France: that of these great industrial families, whose power was partly built on shady dealings, notably collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe famous \u2018based on a true story\u2019 always seems to be a promise to future viewers. But actors find freedom in fiction. Here, it’s about bringing out an emotional truth, our own, that of the performers, which is more intimate, and offering a different perspective,\u201d said Isabelle Huppert.<\/p>\n

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Faced with this treatment, which is deliberately subjective, critics are very divided on its qualities.<\/p>\n

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Not at all convinced, T\u00e9l\u00e9 Loisirs describes the result as \u201ctoo often turning into an outrageous farce.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A film that is more entertaining than profound…<\/h3>\n

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Le Figaro<\/b> describes the film as \u201cmore entertaining than profound\u201d with \u201ca very rigid Isabelle Huppert.\u201d<\/p>\n

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On the other hand, T\u00e9l\u00e9rama<\/b> praises \u201ca drama among the upper middle class with precise staging<\/b>\u201d and an \u201cimpeccable Huppert-Lafitte duo<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Le Parisien<\/b> finds that Thierry Klifa’s feature film provokes malicious laughter and that Isabelle Huppert’s performance is \u201cas admirable as ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In the style of Moli\u00e8re?<\/h3>\n

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Frankly enthusiastic, AvoirAlire.com<\/b> believes that \u201cThierry Klifa loves (great) actors\u201d and that \u201cit shows!\u201d It sees the director’s opus as \u201ca film that in many ways recalls the best of Ozon’s cinema<\/b>,\u201d \u201ca lively and enjoyable comedy-drama about the revisited scandal of the Liliane Bettencourt affair,\u201d which has become \u201ca joyful subject, without ever mocking the characters and situations, except of course for the exuberant and unbearable photographer.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Equally enthusiastic, France Info believes that \u201cThierry Klifa introduces a human dimension to the characters of a real story that has been put through the media mill, and revisits the social film by attacking it from the top of the ladder.\u201d In its view, \u201cneither caricatural nor moralizing, The Richest Woman in the World is a joyful and committed film that depicts a milieu, but above all universal human dramas and passions, in the manner of Moli\u00e8re<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Except that, unlike Harpagon, the richest woman in the world much prefers to have fun than to protect her money…<\/p>\n

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