“A striking calling card for Rosselet-Ruiz.”

In Hélène Rosselet-Ruiz’s keenly observed debut feature Madame (Le triangle d’or), Laura (Malou Khebizi), a 20-year-old from the outskirts of Paris who dreams of joining the army and providing financially for her family, takes on the position of live-in personal assistant to Souria (Soundos Mosbah), the mistress of a Saudi sheikh. Kept in seclusion within a mansion in Paris’ wealthy 16th arrondissement, Souria is at once prisoner and master, treating Laura more like a slave than a personal assistant. Laura performs everyday tasks such as cleaning the mansion, preparing meals, and organizing massages and fashion house visits for Souria, along with more demeaning whims such as ordering the entire menu of a fast-food eatery or demonstrating her physical fitness on a treadmill. Laura quickly bonds with the sheikh’s Palestinian majordomo Emre (Ziad Bakri), who shows her the ropes and who sees the sheikh as his ticket to bringing his family to France. Her relationship with Souria is more complex, the latter’s callous behavior slowly giving way to a fragile bond, until the instability of her situation becomes increasingly clear.

From the opening moments of the film, in which the interview process for the personal assistant position hints at the skills, discretion, and lack of attachments required, it is understood that while Souria may live in luxury and have access to anything that her heart desires, she and by extension her employees are trapped in a gilded cage, where even venturing outdoors is forbidden. This is made even starker by Rosselet-Ruiz’s choice throughout the film to observe the characters via drone shots, mimicking the CCTV cameras installed throughout the house.  This aesthetic choice succeeds on multiple levels: viscerally conveying the feeling of 24/7 surveillance where privacy is an illusion at best, while also making the viewer complicit in said surveillance. It is as if we are encroaching on the miniscule amount of freedom that Laura and Souria have, observing them as they warily come to understand each other. The other great success of the film is how it conveys the sheer labor that goes into Laura’s job. We observe her repetitive routine of cleaning and organizing the mansion, and the deadening monotony of her work only adds to the sensation of being trapped in the gaudy mansion.

The success of the film rests on the shoulders of the actress playing Laura, and thankfully Malou Khebizi is more than up to the task. A major discovery out of Cannes 2024 with her performance in Agathe Riedinger’s Diamant brut (Wild Diamond), Khebizi has a calm, quiet charisma that makes for a compelling lead, even as Laura must maintain a placid demeanor and speak only when spoken to. In the rare moments where she can be more expressive—bonding with Emre, spending a night out with her sister and her friends, and finally standing up to Souria after her classist attitude goes too far—there’s a playfulness and a fieriness that is a pleasure to watch. Soundos Mosbah’s performance isn’t quite as successful—there are moments where Souria’s imperious attitude falls flat—but she is at her best when Souria’s wounded demeanor becomes more apparent closer to the film’s end. And Ziad Bakri is an excellent foil to Khebizi, an authoritative, commanding presence who is her guide to this cloistered world, while also hiding his own sadness. They have an easygoing chemistry, giving their more relaxed scenes together an unexpected charm, though they can turn on a dime and revert to cold professionalism.

The film’s ending, leaving its protagonists’ fates unclear, will certainly frustrate viewers seeking a clear-cut conclusion and a sense of catharsis. But Rosselet-Ruiz admirably hews towards realism in all aspects, and the open-ended nature of the conclusion feels true to life, in a social stratum where the wealthy can do whatever they wish in an instant. Madame is a striking calling card for Rosselet-Ruiz, exploring a world that has rarely been portrayed with such intimacy, and from a perspective that invites empathy rather than voyeurism or judgment.

(c) Image copyright: Les Films de Pierre