Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie is an entertaining and disturbing mixture of sex and death.
Cuckoo in the Nest
by Alexa DalbyMisericordia
3.0 out of 5.0 stars
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive
– Sir Walter Scott
This is the second French film I have seen within a few days in which foraged mushrooms from the woods play a significant – and often deadly – part. Are they now a ‘thing’?
Jérémie (Félix Kysyl), a boyish, apparently amenable young man, returns after 10 years to the French village where he used to live, for his boss, the baker’s, funeral. It’s an ominous, anonymous return, as indicated by his viewpoint of his silent drive there along country roads.
He stays with the baker’s widow Martine (Catherine Frot), to the annoyance of her adult son Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand), with whom he seems to have an unacknowledged homo-erotic relationship. Mixed metaphor alert – Jérémie is a mixture of cuckoo in the nest and cat among the pigeons, as his unexpected arrival sets off a disastrous chain of events. He’s a user of people.
Other people involved with him are Walter (David Ayala), a self-sufficient, solitary, overweight vest-wearer and the middle-aged local priest Philiippe (Jacques Devaley). Who will Jérémie exploit and who in the village will exploit him as he tries to lie his way out of this fix? What are his real sexual inclinations? Or is everything calculated? The investigating police (Sébastien Faglain and Salomé Lopes) turn up in the strangest places.
There are unintended consequences for them all, especially Jérémie.
The biter bit
Misericordia is a strange mixture of sex, death and anti-religion, with astonishingly candid male nudes, as you’d expect from director Alain Guiraudie.
Misericordia premiered at Cannes, screened at the BFI London Film Festival and is released on 28 March 2025 in the UK.
