Tonight at 9:10 p.m., France 2 broadcasts the first two episodes of “Manipulations”, a dramatic series addressing the hold in the couple led by Marine Delterme (“Alice Nevers”) facing Marc Ruchmann (“Plan Coeur”) in the role of ‘a narcissistic pervert.
What is it about ?
Maud is an accomplished businesswoman, a fulfilled mother, surrounded by loyal friends. The only thing missing is a man who would share his life. She then crosses paths with Mathias. And dare not believe it. Still, Mathias loves him, and he’s perfect. Satisfied, Maud does not see what is going on. And when his son begins to dig, he quickly realizes that his mother is under the influence of a dangerous manipulator.
Manipulations, 6×52 minutes – every Monday at 9:10 p.m. on France 2
Who is it with?
After playing the heroine of the crime series Alice Nevers for 18 seasons, Marine Delterme takes on a darker register in the role of Maud, a woman victim of emotional manipulation by a man she believed to be ideal, played by Marc Ruchmann (Plan Coeur).
Constance Dollé (Baron Noir) and Scali Delpeyrat (also in the cast of Alice Nevers) play Maud’s two friends who are desperately trying to help her alongside her children, played by Adèle Galloy (Les Invisibles) and Julien Crampon ( Tomorrow is ours). Anne Loiret (Je te Promets) and Gaëlla Le Dévéhat (Un Si Grand Soleil) complete the cast.
Well worth a look ?
After the thriller A l’Intérieur on France 2 in 2019 and the adaptation of the Welsh series Keeping Faith on TF1 last year under the title Gloria, the duo of screenwriters Jeanne Le Guillou and Bruno Dega are back with Manipulations, an addictive psychological thriller dealing with the theme of the hold in the couple.
In a few exhibition scenes, the screenwriters manage to portray effectively how an accomplished woman despite herself falls into the nets of a narcissistic pervert, who will therefore initiate a process of psychological destabilization by vampirizing all aspects of her life. Maud the better to control her.
By vampirizing all aspects of his life to better control it, Mathias gradually makes him lose his bearings and become the victim of a game of power and domination of which his relatives become helpless witnesses, since they are in turn used and denigrated by Mathias in order to alienate Maud.
With an interpretation that is both sensitive and powerful, Marine Delterme manages to make this heroine convincing and to create empathy for her without ever discrediting her. Marc Ruchmann, meanwhile, is as charismatic as he is terrifying in the guise of this character all the more elusive as he lies to himself to legitimize his violence, in a desperate survival process to compensate for his personal failures.
Thanks to the stylized staging of Marwen Abdallah (Cassandre), Jeanne Le Guillou and Bruno Dega deliver an addictive and stylized mini-series, punctuated by the multiple twists and turns that punctuate the six episodes, and succeed in popularizing the mechanisms of psychological control. without falling into the didacticism or pathos that would make this kind of subject difficult to look at.
By using the dramatic irony (the public knows that Mathias is manipulating Maud) specific to the thriller, the series manages to spare its suspense until the end, and goes crescendo in psychological torments, going so far as to endanger the fate of some. characters as Maud’s son teams up with an investigator to try to stop Mathias before it’s too late for his mother.
At the start of the year on France Télévisions, Manipulations is a very well-made fiction, all the more successful as it makes it possible to raise awareness on a large scale about a problem of systemic society, of which hundreds of thousands of women are victims each year. . And if physical violence is absent here, the series reminds us that sometimes words can be more devastating than blows.
Blackmail, humiliation, insults, beatings … If you are victims of violence, contact 3919. Free and anonymous, this telephone number is now accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Find more information on the site service-public.fr.
