Director: Catherine Breillat | France | Fiction | 2013 | 105 mins
Film source: Strand Releasing
Sponsor: Barbara McGrew
Abuse of Weakness is based on a brilliant premise. In 2004, director Catherine Breillat (Romance; Fat Girl) suffered a stroke, which left her partially paralyzed. While still recovering, she began planning a film to star model Naomi Campbell and infamous con artist and convicted swindler Christophe Rocancourt. That film never came to be. Breillat instead allowed herself, in her diminished mental and physical state, to be conned by Rocancourt to the tune of nearly €700,000. Rather than shamefully bury the incident, Breillat turned it into Abuse of Weakness, a cautionary and barely fictionalized retelling of her ordeal. Featuring a fearless and superbly physical performance by Isabelle Huppert—playing a thinly veiled version of Breillat—Abuse of Weakness is autobiographical filmmaking at its most nakedly honest.