Joyce Glasser reviews Rodeo (April 28, 2023) Cert 15, 106 mins. In cinemas
Lola Quivoron’s first feature film (which won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard category in Cannes) evolved from a documentary short film in 2016 (Au Loin, Baltimore) for which she spent four years embedded in a dirt biker community. This level of commitment guarantees an authenticity that is fundamental to avoid the usual criticisms of filmmakers portraying lower social classes, misfits, outsiders and disenfranchised young people. But a fictional feature-length film requires an expansion of the main focus, with the help of plot, dialogue, atmosphere, tension and characterisation. Despite scoring a coup with its charismatic lead actress, the transition to feature film is not altogether successful.
It is newcomer Julie Ledru who keeps you watching and helps pull the film together. A non-binary biker with a thick, curly mane of brown hair, and a Jane Birkin gap between her teeth, Quivoron found her on Instagram where she identified, as in the film, by the codename “Unknown.” Her real name in the film is Julia.
When we first meet Julia she needs a bike to get away from her family (who are from Guadeloupe) and join a dirt bike group. She already seems to have a routine down pat for obtaining high priced bikes. Making a slight effort to look like she has the money for a bike, she puts a fake set of keys and an empty wallet in a handbag and answers an add. Julia reassures one seller that, “I was born with a bike between my legs.”
She does know her stuff and insists on a test drive to the end of the driveway which, in a “buyer beware” transaction, is standard. To reassure the seller, she offers to leave behind her bag as collateral. Julia zooms out of the driveway, and the minute the wind is in her face on the open road a big smile spreads across her face, which turns from striking to beautiful. Kelman Duran’s musical score hits the right notes. Cinematographer Raphaël Vandenbussche doesn’t always, particularly in attempting to use the camera to express Julia’s state of mind when Ledru’s commanding presence says it all.
Perhaps the best part of the film is the aftermath of this theft, when Julia, proud of her new acquisition, joins a gang riding together on a deserted stretch of tarmac. These are young adults nurtured on the American bike culture that gives them a status to aspire to and a sense of belonging. When, one by one, they throw their torsos back and lift the bike up on the single back wheel, it’s as though they are riding wild broncos rearing up but moving forward at the same time. Julia cannot do the stunts, but in this rodeo she finds a guy willing to give her some tips.
At that moment, a warning that police are arriving causes chaos and a fatal accident. Oddly, we never see the police arrive.
The sport, if it is one, is dangerous, but that’s part of the thrill for young adults from the banlieue where life is cheap and for whom dodging the flics is a continual game. The illegality feeds into the cathartic defiance of each ride. It’s ear-deafeningly noisy which is the only way in which these invisible, marginalised people can be heard. They are all boys. The girls are biker-chicks who pose on the side lines in tight fitting clothes. Julia is an anomaly.
One young man who is attracted to this anomaly is Kaïs (Yanis Lafki), a nice guy who genuinely cares for Julia. A romance, which would be predictable, is not on the cards. A few young men resent this newcomer and she makes more enemies by exhibiting “balls.” Her record in successfully stealing high end bikes impresses the invisible gang leader, Dominik, who runs the garage from his prison cell. It seems to be both a legitimate garage and a front for the gang’s unlawful activities.
Having no other place to live, Julia defies the rules and crashes there, but makes herself useful by becoming a liaison between Dominik and his wife Ophélie (Antonia Buresi, the film’s co-writer) and their son. Julia, and the audience, soon discover that Ophélie is an abused woman to afraid not to maintain the façade while Dominik is in prison.
Julia proves to be such a dependable go-between that Dominik grows to trust her. Julia is particularly good with their child. Earlier Julia tells one of the bikers, that she doesn’t need money, ‘I steal everything,’ but by becoming part of Ophélie’s family, she discovers a use for her money. Ophélie confesses that when she went to Corsica to visit her family, the controlling Dominik punished her by withholding funds, afraid that she would go to Corsica permanently. This is the reason Julia has the job of purchasing provisions. For someone like Julia, for whom freedom is everything, this strikes a chord.
Then Julia proposes a daring plan that gets Dominik’s approval. She has identified a truck that she believes contains a shipment of new KXF 2020 bikes. Julia seems to change with the responsibility for masterminding the heist. You can almost see the corporate ballbuster she would be with an MBA instead of a suicide wish.
Rather unbelievably her enemy in the group is designated as one of the hijackers and decides that the best time to rape Julia is in the middle of removing the bikes from the back of a speeding vehicle. No spoilers here.
The film lacks the tension and character it needs. It’s a precarious life but nothing much is at stake for any of the superficially sketched characters. We never get under the skin of the main players enough to feel involved in their story and can feel little emotion at the unexpected ending.
And, since that early raid scene, the audience is always waiting for the police to add a much need layer of external reality to the plot. Even if only a few of the scammed sellers reported the theft (and given the price of these items most would), with a composite sketch of Julia, you’d think they would have found her. Any decent investigator could find a snitch in the biker group who resents her ascendency in the group enough to snitch for a bit of cash.
