‘Simone: Woman of the Century’ Review: An Admired Leader in Focus

In “Simone: Woman of the Century,” the director Olivier Dahan applies the identical ultra-glossy lacquer he lavished on biopics of Edith Piaf (“La Vie en Rose”) and Grace Kelly (“Grace of Monaco”) to the lifetime of the French politician Simone Veil (1927-2017), a Holocaust survivor who, as well being minister, fought for the legalization of abortion in France and who later served as the primary feminine president of the European Parliament.

Veil’s outstanding, decades-spanning profession — which additionally included advocacy for the rights of Algerian prisoners and for sufferers with H.I.V., at occasions when each had been shunned — requires a grand canvas. Dahan’s default mode is nearer to bombast.

Early on, in a sequence set on the point of the abortion regulation’s passage in 1974, he provides a prolonged montage of male legislators shouting invective in close-up. Later, on this decidedly nonchronological movie, Veil’s internment at Bergen-Belsen turns into an event for Dahan to execute a virtuoso Steadicam shot by the barracks. No matter how grave the state of affairs, “Simone: Woman of the Century” treats it as spectacle.

Veil is performed at completely different ages by Rebecca Marder and Elsa Zylberstein. Timeline-wise, the actresses swap someday across the upheaval of May 1968, though the difficult, at occasions barely motivated flashback construction implies that they’re in impact coleads all through.

Dahan, who additionally wrote the screenplay, offers a serviceable overview of Veil’s accomplishments and moral sense (partly formed by her experiences within the camps), and of the obstacles she overcame in misogynistic civic spheres. But her biography deserved a extra thought of remedy — and a significantly much less heavy hand.

Simone: Woman of the Century
Not rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes. In theaters.