Simone Veil acclaimed by TikTok! Since its release on October 12, the film Simone, the trip of the century sparked a shower of glowing comments on the most popular teen social network. “If you don’t know this lady or have never heard of her, I strongly advise you to go see this film. You will learn that in life nothing is impossible”, “this film gave me the rage to exist and to be more free than ever”, “OK guys, he is incredible, I am motivated to finish my studies and never depend on a man”… These “tiktokeurs” – mainly young people girls – repeat certain excerpts from the biopic on a loop, compare shots of the film and archive images or stage themselves reading A life, Simone Veil’s autobiography published in 2007. This viral phenomenon contributes to the success of director Olivier Dahan’s work. Benefiting from exceptional word-of-mouth, the film has just passed the bar of 2.4 million spectators, the record for a French film released in 2022.
Success all the more breathtaking that… the criticism was mixed, even murderous. “An overdose of cinema effects to tell us about a woman who was the exact opposite of that”, lambasted France Inter, while The cross, for example, mocked a “flashy achievement”. This did not discourage the public. “You can’t imagine the number of private messages I receive on my Instagram account. Over 200 just last weekend. It’s crazy!” enthuses Elsa Zylberstein who, in the film, plays Simone Veil in the second part of her life – her youthful period is played by Rebecca Marder. “I am also sent family photos taken in theaters and bringing together three generations. It’s very moving,” continues Elsa Zylberstein, co-producer of this project that she has been carrying out for years.
If the career of Simone Veil, long ranked among the favorite personalities of the French, is well known to their elders, many young people have discovered her exceptional destiny through this film: the struggle for her survival in the concentration camps; its commitment to respect for the dignity of detainees, in particular Algerian prisoners at the time of decolonization; his fight for the decriminalization of abortion which will lead to the law of 1974; his election as President of the European Parliament five years later; her support for the fight against AIDS in the 1990s. The personal destiny of the woman who spent her childhood in Nice, within a united, republican and secular family, mingles with great history. Sunday evening February 5, seventeen weeks after its release, simone was still almost full in this small cinema in the Montparnasse district of Paris: couples of different ages, mothers accompanied by their daughters, young women who came alone. A long silence accompanied the end of the credits, most of the spectators seeming picked up by the same emotion.
It should be noted that the capital represents only 17% of admissions to simone – compared to 20% on average for the other films. The incarnation proposed by the director of The kid, another biographical film, released in 2007, contrasts with the modest personality of the one who entered the Pantheon five years ago. “Like many popular cinematic works, Simone, with its ubiquitous music, tears and cries, does tons of it to reach its audience, believes Jean Latreille, associate professor of economics and social sciences and author of Movies and society. The sociological intuitions of popular cinema (the Harmattan). But an exceptional character with an extraordinary life undoubtedly deserves a film to excess, the spectators seem to have said to themselves. No offense to intellectual conventions that advocate moderation or authenticity in all things.”
“My students were totally blown away”
If many criticisms have focused on the prostheses or the makeup of Elsa Zylberstein, sometimes considered “outrageous”, the public has ignored it. For Jean Latreille, the film’s success can also be explained by the image it gives of political action. “It is not the political animality that people acclaim in a leader, but his ability to be at the service of those he serves. This quality is undoubtedly the one that the general public attributes to Simone Veil”, explains he. The other great strength of the work is that it resonates with current events: the inclusion of the right to abortion in the French Constitution under debate in Parliament, the questioning of access to abortion in the United States, the war in Ukraine which highlights the place of Europe… “At the time of writing the screenplay, three years ago, I was already aware of the political dimension of the film”, explains director Olivier Dahan. Its goal ? “To reach a young audience while always keeping in mind this idea of transmission.”
Successful bet. 15-24 year olds would represent more than 16% of admissions. Simone, with its budget of 15 million euros, is the film that attracted the most viewers in this age group last year. “While this audience, traditionally more sensitive to American productions or action films, was far from being acquired, underlines Pierre Branco, general manager of Warner Bros. Discovery France, which distributes the film. Our strategy was also to work closely with National Education so that it is seen by as many students as possible.” Many teachers were invited to the previews, classes moved. Caroline Bianchi, a French teacher in the Var, recently took her ninth grade class there. “I was a little dreading the length of the film – 2:20 – but my students were totally hooked. And five young girls have since chosen to present Simone Veil’s career at the patent oral”, she explains. .
Céline Dos Santos, who teaches literature in a college in Hérault, has seen the same enthusiasm. And the professor to return to certain scenes evoking the concentration camps, deemed “testing”, but “useful”. “I could feel a certain form of annoyance in some people, but it doesn’t matter, relates Olivier Dahan. For me, cinematographic writing is a powerful tool. The best way to interest this generation which did not necessarily have seen Schindler’s List, The pianist Or Holocaust.” Whether Telerama evokes “a staging with disproportionate means and melodramatic effects” which “transforms the experience of the death camps into an indecent spectacle”, Olivier Dahan prefers to focus on the positive feedback he has received, in particular from of the Vel family.
The film’s success can also be explained by the current young generation’s enthusiasm for feminist struggles. “Simone Veil was completely in solidarity with feminists, but did not claim to be such, nuance the historian Dominique Missika, author of several books on the former Minister of Health. She was above all a pragmatist. This brilliant jurist did not want to make a revolution, but thought that the reform of society through law would enable women to achieve equality.” How to arouse new vocations? “I received several messages from teenage girls telling me that they wanted to follow his example and embark on a career as a jurist or lawyer,” says Elsa Zylberstein. Under her Instagram account, several comments lament that the actress is not nominated for the Césars – the film only appears in the categories of best costumes and best sets –, and see it as a new sign of the disconnection of the elites. “It does not matter what one thinks of the cinematographic qualities of the film. The important thing is that it fulfills its mission of transmission, believes Dominique Missika who, since the release of the film, is solicited by very young girls in the living rooms of the book where she is invited. They come to entrust me with their admiration, their desire to know more about Simone Veil. And that is so gratifying!”