“The Unknown Girl”
To say that a doctor saves lives is practically redundant, since this is his mission as a professional. But what about a doctor who desperately tries to save the life of someone who is already dead and buried?This is the theme of the great movie “The Unknown Girl” (“La fille inconnue”, 2016, France / Belgium).
Jenny Gavin (Adèle Haenel) is a young female doctor in Liège, Belgium. Very responsible and efficient, Jenny works as a family doctor to replace her former mentor, who retired due to a serious illness. She is also in charge of training Julien (Olivier Bonnaud), a medical student.
One day, two events take place in Jenny’s office. In the waiting room, a boy has an epileptic seizure, and Julien is completely without reaction, while Jenny helps the child. Later, someone calls on the intercom, an hour after closing-time, and Jenny orders Julien not to answer.
The next day, she is visited by police officers, who want to see the images recorded by the security camera, because a young woman was found dead nearby. Shocked, Jenny discovers that the dead girl was the person who had called the night before.
Even though everyone consider her innocent, the doctor feels guilty for not having attended the girl, because it could have saved her life.What’s worse is that she appears to be an totally unknown person, with no documents or information of any kind about her identity.
This event disturbs Jenny to such an extent that she declines a more attractive position at an important medical center to stay in the same office. Obsessed by what happened, she decides at all costs to find out who the stranger was. Since he could not avoid his death, she would not allow her to be buried as an indigent.
This incessant quest drives her to disturb a lot of people, young and old patients, parents, and even dangerous thugs.In addition, she has yet to deal with Julien, who had decided to drop out of medical school after five years of studies.
It is true that the medical situation in Belgium is quite different from the health chaos in Brazil, but Jenny takes her mission as a doctor to the extreme. She is not only satisfied to cure them of an illness, but she seeks to alleviate the suffering that afflicts them.
The highlight of the film is this young Parisian actress, Adèle Haenel, who emerged to the world of cinema playing the sensual Floriane in “Water Lilies” (“Naissance des pieuvres”, 2007, France).Adèle shows a lot of competence in a role where emotions alternate continuously.
“The Unknown Girl” was written and directed by the brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who presented it in Cannes, where it was nominated for Best Picture.After the festival, the brothers decided to make a new edition, leaving the final version seven minutes shorter than the original. The movie won the Best Foreign Film award at the Online Film Critics Society Awards in 2017.
An additional message that we can extract from “The Unknown Girl” is that every citizen can and should be an active force in the social environment in which he lives. In times where intolerance and selfishness prevail, this is still a dream and a challenge to everybody.
Original Title: “La fille inconnue”