In “Victoria”, Virginie Efira embodies a lawyer on the verge of implosion, caught up in sentimental and professional turmoil. A complex and deeply endearing character, which has allowed his interpreter to develop his career.
Victoria: woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown
Released in 2016, Victoria marks the first collaboration between director Justine Triet and Virginie Efira. In this dramatic comedy, the actress lends her features to Victoria Spick, a lawyer who finds herself faced with a dilemma. While attending a wedding, a guest is stabbed and one of her friends, Vincent (Melvil Poupaud), is accused. Despite their closeness, she agrees to defend him.
At the same time, she calls on Sam (Vincent Lacoste), a former client who tried drug trafficking, to help her take care of her two daughters. While his emotions are already beginning to overflow, a discovery comes to drive the point home. Victoria learns that her ex David (Laurent Poitrenaux) has posted a story inspired by their story. On the brink of crisis, the heroine holds firm.
Victoria ©The Pact
Virginie Efira is nominated for the first time for the César thanks to his joyful and touching interpretation of this deeply endearing protagonist. Three years later, Justine Triet entrusts a new title role to the actress, that of Sibyla feature film in which she embodies a psychoanalyst involved in a love triangle of which she is not, however, apart.
A turning point for Virginie Efira
With Victoria, the career of the actress takes a turn. Until then, Virginie Efira is “invariably” subscribed to films where she “runs in the rain and rolls shovels just before the credits” as she says to Marie Claire. His characters in Love is better with two Where 20 years apart can testify. It is also partly thanks to the romance with Pierre Niney that Justine Triet thinks of the actress for her feature film.
Victoria definitely comes put an end to this cinematic routine. Virginie Efira adds to Marie Claire :
Before, I was always the sweet girl, nice, a little funny – not the femme fatale, what! – with whom we were going to have a good time, and after all why not, it’s still cool to do Drew Barrymore as a job! But since Victoria of Justine Triet, I am offered much more insane roles: for that, it’s great to grow old.
She says in an interview for Press Center :
I have more choice. So far, coming off the TV, I mostly received popular comedies. But if I want to go towards the kind of films that I like to see as a spectator, I have to learn to say no. Me, I like films that make you forget this loneliness that we all carry around.
Asked by premiere the actress adds about the complexity of the lawyer who opened doors for her:
Victoria is one of those modern women who claim their sexuality loud and clear and talk about it like guys. Before, it didn’t belong to them, so now it must belong to them all the more strongly.
Since then, Virginie Efira has established herself as an essential figure in French-speaking cinema, brilliant in roles as nuanced as those of The Great Bath and An impossible love, or even those of recent Goodbye idiots and Benedetta.
