User Reviews

While The Unknown Girl, the latest film by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne ("Two Days, One Night"), is suggestive of social and political issues such as immigration, unemployment, and economic imbalance, its main concern is with moral character, accountability, and spiritual redemption. Like many other films of the Dardenne Brothers, it is simple, natural, and direct, without using a musical background or resorting to sentimentality. Consistent with recent exceptional performances from established actresses such as Cecile de France in The Kid With a Bike and Marion Cotillard in Two Days, One Night, Adele Haenel ("Love at First Flight") is transfixing as Dr. Jenny Davin, a young general practitioner in Saraing, Belgium whose quiet strength, professionalism, and fierce determination dominate the film and make it a worthy addition to the two-time Palme d'Or winners' oeuvre.

Shot by cinematographer Alain Marcoen ("Two Days, One Night"), the film begins at a small clinic where Jenny has been filling in for the retiring Dr. Habran (Yves Larec) but must soon decide whether to accept a more lucrative position out of town. When a young boy has convulsions, Jenny deal with it promptly but later calls out her intern,, Julien (Olivier Bonnaud) for letting his emotions get the better of him, a dressing down that causes him to rethink whether or not he wants to be a doctor, though she later confesses to him that she was being high-handed. Her next admonition to Julien, however, has much more serious consequences.

When they hear an after-hours buzzing on the intercom, she instructs him to ignore it, telling the young intern that he cannot let patients rule him. When a young African woman is found dead on the opposite side of the freeway by the river Meuse, however, Jenny is riddled with guilt. It is soon clear that the deceased woman was the same person who knocked on their door late at night, yet without any identification papers, discovering her identity and the cause of her death is a challenge which becomes the central focus of the film. Though it deals with a possible criminal investigation, it is less of a "whodunit" than an exploration of the many ways in which people deal with feelings of guilt.

Realizing that if she had answered the ring, the young woman might still be alive, Jenny takes it upon herself to conduct a solo investigation. Hoping to discover the victim's name and find anyone who knew her in order to give her a proper burial, Jenny walks around the town, talking to adults and children who may have seen the woman, showing them her photo and reassuring them that any information they provide will be held in confidence. Though most are in denial and refuse to cooperate, Jenny is able to pick up important signals, especially in an interview with a teenager (Louka Minneli) when his accelerated pulse rate indicates that he may not be telling the truth.

The Unknown Girl is mostly muted with little variation in tone, but there are moments of joy when two young male patients sing a lovely song they wrote for Jenny, and when an elderly woman throws a gift of a panettone out the window into Jenny's waiting arms. It also touches on the spiritual when a man asks Jenny, "Why should I screw up my life if she's already dead?" and Jenny replies, "Because, if she were dead, she wouldn't be on our minds." While a too-neat resolution and a lack of the element of surprise keep the film from being in the top rank of the Dardennes' works, its message that healing can only begin when there is a willingness to communicate and to be responsible for one's actions is as good as any that have been delivered in previous films.

A dead body near the riverbank. An inconclusive police investigation. A prostitution network, operating from a shady bar. It sounds like the classic ingredients for a Raymond Chandler crime story. In reality, it's the set-up for 'La Fille Inconnue', the latest film by the Belgian film makers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne.

With this crime story, they explore a new genre. Usually, their films are social dramas about people on the fringes of society and their daily struggle for life. With this approach, they have made many very intense and moving films. But in my opinion, they were starting to repeat themselves. 'Deux Jours, Une Nuit', from 2014 was much acclaimed but overrated.

In many of their films, the plot development is secondary to the emotional power of the performances. Not so in 'La Fille Inconnue'. The plot is exciting and functional in carrying the story forward. The central character is a young doctor, who gets obsessed by a murder case because the victim rang her doorbell minutes before being killed. The doctor didn't answer the bell, and blames herself for it. She is determined to reveal the identity of the victim and starts an investigation of her own. Because she is a doctor, she is bound by an oath of silence and can't share her information with the police - a very clever script element. At the end, she manages to solve the crime. But at the same time, the truth confronts her with the fact that the victim would still be alive if she had opened the door.

Of course, this is not a classic crime thriller in the style of, let's say, Claude Chabrol. The Dardenne brothers remain true to their trademark hyper-realistic style and to their social conscience. The young doctor is treating poor, displaced, and lonely people. She herself is a solitary, business-like character. The film is set in the gritty industrial town of Seraing near Liège, the home base of the Dardennes. It's populated by working class people. They don't show emotions easily, and that goes for the doctor as well.

The crime element makes 'La Fille Inconnue' stand out in a positive way. It's one of the best films the Dardenne brothers have made in a long time. And it's definitely one of the best films coming out of Belgium this year. Never mind the lukewarm reception of this film in Cannes.

The efficient Dr. Jenny Davin (Adèle Haenel) works hard and has been chosen to replace Dr. Habran (Yves Larec), who has just retired, at the Kennedy Hospital. One night, someone rings the bell of her office after-hours and Dr. Davin asks her trainee Julien (Olivier Bonnaud) to not open the door since does not to seem an emergency. On the next morning, Police Inspectors Ben Mahmoud (Ben Hamidou) and Bercaro (Laurent Caron) require her surveillance tape since a teenager was found dead on the other side of the road and they are investigating what happened. Jenny feels guilty for not opening the door and becomes obsessed to find the teenager's identity. Her investigation affects her relationship with patients that might know something about the unknown girl.

"La fille inconnue", a.k.a. ("The Unknown Girl", is a film impressively realistic with a storyline of human values and obsession. Like most of the European movies (Belgium / France), the plot is developed at a slow-pace, supported by the great performance of Adèle Haenel. It is good to see the human values of her character that is deeply affected by her attitude. It is also interesting to see how doctors work in France, going to the patient's home and attending also during the night. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Garota Desconhecida" ("The Unknown Girl")

"The Unknown Girl" is one of the most refreshing and original pictures to come out in several years. It is a character study of a female doctor coming to grips with her conscience as she ignores a frantic after-hours caller who is subsequently killed. She becomes a part- time detective to find out what happened to the girl, becoming obsessed at the expense of her practice and at considerable risk to her own safety.

French actress Adele Haenel gives a thoughtful, understated performance as the doctor/ detective. She is in nearly every scene, wearing a hooded parka out of season and with a determined innocence and disregard for normal investigative procedure, which she improvises as she goes. The film achieves the 'suspension of disbelief' necessary for films to work, and receives great assistance from an almost-perfect mise en scene on the streets of Liege, Belgium. It becomes real, for an hour and 50 minutes. Ignore bad reviews and see if you agree it is as close to perfection as filmdom can get.

Dr Jenny Davin is a young go getter, she is running a small practice but is destined for much better things in the filed of medicine. She has an intern/locum who she rides pretty hard and seems to be lacking in all but professional courtesies.

Then one night her practice door bell rings and she refuses to have it answered. Later she finds that it was the last attempt of a young girl to get help before she was murdered. Faced with the weight of what she has done – or rather not done – she becomes obsessed with finding out who the girl was and so begins a quest for the truth.

This is a bleak film, the town is crumbling and grey and everything has the feel of neglect – this is replicated in the way some of the people are treated and the victim is no exception. However, at the centre of it all is hope and decency and so the two are finely balanced against each other in a way that holds the yin and yang together nicely.

The acting is all great too and it will keep your attention until the final reveal. It is well written directed and shot too – so not a lot not to like – in French this is a film for those who like to an unusual plot and appreciate the smaller things that cinema has to offer.

It's a small and dull city as many other in Belgium and Europe. It is inhabited by a mixed population, 'local' Europeans, more recent but well integrated Europeans (some of them are police inspectors), recent immigrants, some legal, some not. Again, as in many other cities of Belgium and Europe. This quite typical landscape of a place like many other in an Europe in change is the setting for 'La fille inconnue' the most recent film of brothers Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne and as in many of their recent movies the characters fight not only the dullness of life and problems in communication but also face moral choices and need to assume responsibility for their acts.

The lead character is a young doctor in the community, who deeply cares about her patients. Being just a professional is not enough if you are a physician, this kind of message is quite obvious and smartly developed, as the best scenes in the film are the ones where we see doctor Jenny Davin interacting with her patients, taking care of their bodies but also of their life conditions and eventually of their souls. When faced with the guilt of not having answered a ring at the door much later than her work hours, which led to the tragic death of a young woman apparently followed by some bad people, the feelings of guilt will lead her to run her own inquiry with the main goal of discovering the identity of the victim and ensuring her family knows her fate, and that she is properly put to rest. This will let to the eventual discovery of the murderer, in a case that involves a non-negligible dose of shared responsibility of the people who surrounded her.

The film is very much based on the lead character, one of these people who are capable of showing compassion and giving almost everything in there personal lives in order to help their human fellows. From this point of view it resembles another film of the Dardenne brothers which I liked a lot - The Kid with a Bike (Le gamin au velo). There are bad people in this world, but there are also good ones, and it's worth making films about them - this seems to be the shared message of the two films. 'La fille inconnue' however lacks the magnetism of The Kid and although Adèle Haenel gives a remarkable performance, this is not enough to fill in for the lack of pace and the rather unconvincing ending. Brother Dardenne's characters may seem to good to be true, and they do not owe anybody an explanation for being so - that's fine, but in the absence of a solid motivation there need to be more dramatic substance in the story. This is exactly what is missing in this film, just seeing good people in action in a difficult community may be enough for a documentary, but not for a full feature.

Simple yet effective, The Unknown Girl starts out as a typical day in the life of Jenny Davin, a doctor running a private clinic who feels guilty not answering a late night door bell ring at the office that oddly ends up costing a young woman her life. Feeling guilty, when Davin discovers that this woman's identity is unknown she makes an effort to find out who she is so that she won't have to lie in an unmarked grave.

It's a well done movie, I'm very impressed with what they did with so little. Some what like a Dogme 95 movie in the sense that they do nothing to enhance the story, which is so basic. No music, no flashy cuts or cinematography. Nothing to make it sparkle, Yet it does. It could have been so dull but it wasn't at all, was interesting and really pulls you into the story. worth seeing.

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When you settle down to watch a Dardenne brothers film, you know you'll be put through the wringer. Desperate people, harrowing situations--your emotions will be put to the test. I wanted to yell at Jenny Davin at several points "You are not a character in a Dostoevsky novel! Don't take all this grief on yourself!" But so compelling is the story, and so successful is Adele Haenel at embodying this young doctor, that my sang froid soon returned.

The stalwarts Jeremie Renier and Olivier Gourmet contribute solid performances here, and bit players are often effective (the black actor playing the pimp is really scary) but it's Haenel you'll remember for a long time. She was the girl on a survival course in Les combattants, and the really vain teenager in Naissance des pieuvres; now she has made a really important title for her filmography.

"A good doctor is not emotional," maintains Dr. Jenny Davin. "If you are moved by a patient's suffering, it causes a bad diagnosis." Dr. Davin runs a medical clinic in Liege and is moving swiftly up the career ladder. Late at night the clinic door buzzer rings. There is a young woman and a plea for help. The plea is ignored. Dr. Davin wants her good doctor mantra to stick for her office intern. "She will come back tomorrow," says Dr. Davin of the unknown girl. Yet the next day the woman, an immigrant, is found dead. Consumed by guilt, Dr. Davin searches for clues to who this woman is and why she died. In this way Dr. Davin enters an underworld in the community, full of fear and manipulation, that she never knew of before and from which she may not return.

The film explores enticing themes; immigrants trapped in a web of fear, finding the balance between too much emotion and too little, and – the most beguiling – the right amount of emotion for a doctor to utilize in their trade. "Wouldst thou, then, have preferred the condition of a weak woman, exposed to all evil, and capable of none?" Dr. Rappaccini asks his daughter Beatrice, in Hawthorne's wonderful story. "I would fain have been loved," answers Beatrice "not feared." Dr. Davin walks the same line between love and fear, empathy and professional judgment, arrogance and weakness, . . .

The Dardenne brothers are masters at their trade. They specialize in portraying economic and social justice, as they do here. It is a slow-paced, yet seducing film. It is two weeks after I saw the film and the lessons it teaches linger. The story simmers in a tantalizing way in my mind. Seen at the Miami International Film Festival.

Dr. Jenny Davin is a caring doctor. One evening She hears a knock on the surgery's front door after closing time and decides to ignore it. The next day, the body of the unknown visitor found on the banks of the Meuse and it's not from natural causes. With the help of security camera footage, Jenny decides to find out the identity of the unknown visitor. The story of the movie is very intimate and like Dardenne brothers previous movies, this film also focuses on a female character. Jenny's character was nicely handled by Haenel. They always place the female character in an unfamiliar situation. Like 'Two Days, One Night' this film also follows some door to door conversation. Overall, it's a one time watchable investigation drama and Haenel's caring character was one of the best things that happened in this film.

The film feels and looks amateurish and cinematography is sorely lacking. Those are the negatives. The positives? Good acting and an okay plot. There is a lot of promise in "The Unknown Girl" and it would've been nice to see the story fleshed out with a few subplots here and there. Overall, not bad for the meager budget they had to work with. Hopefully, in the future, bigger things will come their way.

I said I was waiting to be disappointed by a Dardennes brothers' film but I guess I wasn't in such a hurry and didn't expect that after six tremendous cinematic experience, seven wouldn't play as lucky number.

Disappointed is too harsh a word but I can't say I enjoyed "The Unknown Girl" even within the definition I give to the verb 'enjoying' when it comes to the Belgian siblings. You don't enjoy their films, you experience them, generally following a normal person in a sort of quest that will define a new path to his or her life, it's existential and essential, it's often a make-it or break-it journey with more than one destiny at stakes... and often ends with a lesson of humanity or humility, lesson, not lecture.

Let's make it clear, I'm not trying to find patterns in the Dardennes' body of work, but only a simple common thread which applies to every film I saw. My bias isn't even negative because I think the Dardennes are also caring for meaningfulness but while not meaninglessness, "The Unknown Girl" works differently because the story doesn't grab you with the same intensity. It is about a young hard-working doctor named Jenny (Adele Haenel) who refuses to open the door after the day is over and is busy telling her intern Julien (Olivier Bonnaud) how he shouldn't get overwhelmed by his emotions. The kid wanted to open the door but needed a sermon about how to be a doctor.

The day after, the verdict falls, Jenny learns that the woman was calling for help and that the door staying closed threw her at the hands of someone who apparently killed her. Jenny didn't know it was a cry for help, there was only one buzzing sound and naturally, she's devastated by the news, and so we are. At that point of the film, I was wondering what direction Jenny' life would take, where could she go anyway? Basically, the quest is simple and will consist in finding the identity of the woman, an African immigrant, and to understand what happened.

Jenny feels she owes that to her and our empathy is granted at that moment, if she can't redeem herself with someone, she needed to create a change in her life in order to give some weight to her gesture, there's got to be a before and an after, something to conceal the amount of poisoning guilt. So she declines a more promising job at a clinic, she encourages her intern to resume his medical studies and she leads her investigation as an amateur Hercule Poirot. The intent is noble but we're far from the usual framework of the Dardennes as many things don't quite work.

For instance, we don't see a real shift in Jenny's attitude, she remains constantly emotionless apart from a few moments of emotionality. I know it is a deliberate choice from the Dardennes not to let any spectacular emotion slip from the characters but seriously, without the plains, there would be no peaks, with Haenel, it seems we're always venturing in the realm of plains without any moment of true fragility or emotionality, Haenel leads her investigation with the enthusiasm of a shell-shocked victim so unusual even in a Dardennes film. "The Unknown Girl" was longer than their usual work and I felt like Emperor Joseph yawning at the Figaro representation in "Amadeus".

The second thing is the sense of danger, there are some threats pending over Jenny but since the object of her quest is dead, it's like we already reached a feeling of disclosure, the rest is only about wrapping up, there's no other life that can be concerned, affected or be saved and give a proper meaning to Jenny's investigation. Maybe this would have been too cinematic but why not? It's like the Dardennes abandoned any chance to surprise us, to stick to realism at the expenses of a capability to entertain none of their previous films ever lacked.

So we see Jenny meeting patients, kids and their parents (many cameos from the usual Frabrizio Rongione, jérémie Rénier and Olivier Gourmet, natch) but the pay-offs are rather meager and the acting sometimes problematic. Indeed, it's weird how she keeps the same face and tone with every single person she meets, and you can't tell the difference between her state of sadness or happiness. Meanwhile the film lingers on the detective work taking our patience for granted. The resolution came and it was conclusive but not quite satisfying because the set-up was weaker than usual and even by the standards used from the Dardennes, the film was too sober.

I feel guilty to point out aspects that have me usually satisfied with the Dardennes but maybe this is the revelation that at their point of their career, they should try something new. Ordinary stories about ordinary people can make for extraordinary experiences but there should be something to hook us on, Jenny is no "Rosetta", there's one interrogation mark in her quest but she acted in such a way she became a mystery within the mystery, and maybe both canceled each other. If not an unpleasant experience, a rather forgettable one... because it doesn't live up to the level of greatness the Dardennes brother got us used to.

Underneath it all, this film is a fascinating study on the importance of work life balance for mental health. The main character works in an extremely demanding work role as a community clinic GP, working long hours with challenging patients and is constantly on call. It's really no wonder then that she is unable to process a small traumatic event and it spirals into an unhealthy obsession that dominates her whole life. If ever there was a call to arms about the importance of hobbies and personal interests, this film is it!

This is my favorite film of the Dardenne Brothers since their wonderful, but perhaps excessively dark "Lorna's Silence". The two films between that one and this, "The Kid on the Bike" and "Two Days, One Night" had seen the understatedly humanist autuers hovering towards Hollywood level uplift. "The Unknown Girl" does not totally reverse that course. Indeed, I think it ties the narrative threads together a tad too tightly at the end. But this is a powerful plea for acknowledgement for anonymous immigrants to western Europe. Adele Haenel gives a beautifully subtle, gentle performance.

Greetings again from the darkness. A nice story set-up is always welcome, and this one delivers a creative attention-grabber that draws us in pretty quickly. Brothers and long-time filmmaking collaborators Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne (TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT, THE KID WITH A BIKE) edited the film a bit after its Cannes screening, and the result is a quiet little whodunit with an interesting lead actress performance.

A doctor and her intern have a disagreement at closing time, and opt not to answer the clinic door when a young lady rings after hours. The doctor's guilty conscience leads her to become obsessed with finding out the name of the lady when she turns up murdered the next morning. It's passionate and amateur sleuthing at its most awkward, unconventional, and dangerous.

Dr Jenny Davin has recently accepted a post at the prestigious Kennedy Hospital, replacing a retiring doctor. The tragedy causes a change of mind on the job so that she may focus on the case and on continuing patient care through her clinic. The filmmakers initially wanted Marion Cotillard for the role (what filmmaker wouldn't?), but Adele Haenel (LOVE AT FIRST FIGHT) brings her own approach, and though she doesn't come across as the warmest person, it's quite apparent that she is a dedicated doctor who cares very much for her patients. Even when she tells her intern Julien (Olivier Bonnaud) that "a good doctor must control his emotions", she is ever-stoic with her delivery.

The story is missing the usual Dardenne brothers' twist, and instead, at its core is an ill-advised detective story and a case of morality, guilt, and the drive to do the right thing. The house calls and open communication with doctors will confound some U.S. viewers, but the various vignettes during Dr. Davin's gumshoe work keep us engaged. The sub-plot with Dr. Davin reigniting intern Julien's passion for medicine also maintains the minimalist approach and restrained performances … all with a very grounded approach with mostly hand-held cameras.

When the body of a young woman is found on a riverbank it hits Dr Jenny Davin particularly hard. She didn't know the girl but feels guilty because she hadn't answered the door when she rang after office hours the previous night. The police have no idea who she is so Dr Davin decides to find out, so her family can be informed. She asks her patients but none of them claim to know her, although many seem distinctly evasive. Later a boy admits he saw her with an older man in a caravan; this leads her to ask more questions... and upset some potentially dangerous characters.

This Belgian drama has a distinctly minimalist feel; there is no background music and the locations used are far from glamorous. Likewise the characters are all fairly ordinary; there is mix of native Belgians and immigrants but none of obvious racial tension one often gets in such films. The cast does a solid job; particularly Adèle Haenel, who really impresses as Dr Davin; she is rarely off screen. The mystery of who the girl is and how she came to die on the riverbank are interesting but secondary to showing how the guilt of not answering her door, something anybody might have done, affects her and the various people she talks to about the girl. Her investigation feels very real; she is just showing a photograph to various locals not acting like a detective unearthing clues the police missed. Overall I'd definitely recommend this; just don't expect a traditional murder mystery.

These comments are based on watching the film in French with English subtitles.

There's much to recommend in the "realist" style of film-making not least as an antidote to the vapid outpouring from Hollywood. As a means of exposing viewers to lives and situations beyond their own it's a great way to create empathy and understanding. However there seems little point in making the end product sluggish and boring since I don't need to be in a cinema to experience this - I can just stay home and look in the mirror.

Now "The Unknown Girl" isn't exactly boring but the emotional tone is essentially the same throughout and you're not really drawn into the lives of the characters. Instead the movie is a morality play that constructs a conflict between external action and internal perception with the main protagonist then spending their time trying to resolve this conflict.

This was an interesting enough journey but there's no real sense of jeopardy or of anything much being at stake. In contrast I find the films of Mike Leigh to be far more engaging and disturbing. He also works hard to evoke compassion for those less fortunate than ourselves but in his case the characters have a rich inner life that sheds far more light on their struggle.

A lady doctor is searching the identity of an unknown girl who is dead near to her clinic. This french movie even does not show the girl's face in a frame! But the power of the subject will haunt the audience like anything. It is not exaggerating anything even the doctor's act for heroism. She is just having perseverance in this matter. That's all. As citizen, anybody can be more responsible about a public incident. It is the message strike in my head. Even at a point of time, the police official lightly showing his ego by telling that 'doctor, we know how to deal the case well'. Still doctor is stable and confident on the matter. Missing of sex at old ages, the form of oldest profession (prostitution), the value of a doctor in a society, psychological aspects which affects the man who has unknowingly involved in the crime scene. All been discussed well.

First, I should note that "La fille inconnue" ("The Unknown Girl" in English) is the first movie by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne that I've seen. What I took from it is that it has two major focuses. One is the main character's guilty conscience after learning that a young woman whom she neglected to admit to her clinic has been found dead, prompting her to find out the woman's identity. The other is the look at immigration into Europe. The victim is an immigrant from somewhere in Africa (the country is not identified).* Continuing immigration into Europe - often people fleeing terrorism - has invigorated neo-Nazi groups.

As for the movie itself, it was OK not great. I would like to see other movies by the Dardennes to compare this one to them.

*Off the top of my head I would guess the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). Cast member Marc Zinga is from there. During the colonial period, King Leopold of Belgium cut off the hands of any Congolese who didn't bring back a quota of rubber.