Film of the month: 4 stars

A fictionalised account of tragic true events, Saint Omer tells the story of a mother on trial for her baby’s death. Emma Simmonds discovers a compelling drama full of complexity and energised by strong central performances

An appalling, seemingly irredeemable act is the starting point for a gripping French legal drama that, despite the discomfort, is impossible to turn away from. Saint Omer is based on a real-life case that caught the attention of its director Alice Diop. This is Diop’s first narrative feature after great success as a documentarian with films like the César-winning 2016 short Towards Tenderness and the feature-length We, a prize-winner at 2021’s Berlinale.

The daughter of Senegalese parents and raised in a housing project near Paris, Diop specialises in making films about contemporary French society. With Saint Omer, she trains her penetrating yet sympathetic lens on a self-penned narrative (written with Amrita David and Marie N’Diaye) that offers a fictional skew on the 2016 trial of Fabienne Kabou, a woman of Senegalese origin who killed her 15-monthold daughter after abandoning her at high tide on a beach. Struck by parallels between herself and the accused, and with her producers sensing the potential for a project, Diop was a fixture at the trial.

Events unfold in the titular northern French town as the film tells of Senegalese immigrant Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda, who works as a curator alongside occasional acting roles). Coly is accused of an identical crime to Kabou; despite confessing to the abandonment of her daughter, she doesn’t consider herself the responsible party. When asked why she left her child to die, she tells the gobsmacked judge played by Valérie Dréville: ‘I don’t know. I hope this trial will give me the answer.’ In a set-up that mirrors Diop’s own obsession, Laurence is seen through the eyes of literature professor and novelist Rama (artist and filmmaker Kayije Kagame, making her feature debut). Rama shares the same racial background as the accused and is observing the trial with the intention of retelling it as a modern-day twist on Medea.

Yet Rama finds herself triggered by what she hears, and we see her squirming in the public gallery and struggling to contain her emotions in a hotel room afterwards, with flashbacks illuminating her own traumatic upbringing as the daughter of a cold and difficult mother. Favouring stillness and contemplation, Diop gives Laurence the space and screentime to tell her tumultuous tale. The director stays on her as she recounts key episodes from her life in long, mesmerising scenes, with Malanda giving an exquisitely multi-faceted, sublimely intriguing turn.

Laurence is composed, intelligent and elegant; she has sly, strange moments and, evidently, the smarts to play the room, but convinces on another level as a grieving and damaged woman who could merely be striving for dignity. You’re likely to find yourself veering back and forth in pursuit of a verdict, with making your mind up about the character a key part of Saint Omer’s appeal. In this robustly humane effort, Laurence is presented as a woman deserving of our consideration and sympathy, however terrible her actions. She appears to be the victim of numerous healthcare failings as we hear how she gave birth alone, and was dangerously isolated in the early months of her child’s life.

Diop also places her in a wider, thought-provoking context as the subject of media and public fascination. She frames Laurence’s treatment in the courtroom through a prism of racial prejudice and preconceived notions about the kind of person an African immigrant is allowed to be. Laurence presents herself as a philosophy-spouting PhD student which seems to puzzle people and fire them up to expose her as a fraud, something that’s apparent in the prosecutor’s particularly vitriolic attitude. Laurence appears to turn some of these assumptions to her advantage when she brings witchcraft into play as a possible defence.

If the film does have a weakness, it’s that the character of Rama sometimes feels frustratingly remote despite a poignant, unshowy turn from Kagame. Taciturn and watchful, with her past pushed down deep, Rama is drawn less compellingly than Laurence. Nevertheless, Diop’s background as a documentarian serves her brilliantly: scenes were shot in order, with the performers encouraged to find the truth of each moment with minimal direction. The commitment to authenticity has reaped impressive results. Saint Omer is a riveting, unflashy feature rich in life’s complexity and contradictions, and is wonderfully knotty stuff.

Saint Omer is in cinemas from Friday 3 February.