The Crime Is Mine

The Crime Is Mine (Mon crime) is a 2023 French crime comedy film written and directed by François Ozon starring Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Rebecca Marder, Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini, Dany Boon, and André Dussollier. Set in the 1930s, the film follows an actress who gains notoriety after getting acquitted of murder for self-defense. It is a loose adaptation of the 1934 play Mon crime by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil, which has been adapted into two American films, True Confession (1937) and Cross My Heart (1946).

Plot
In 1935, in Paris. Madeleine Verdier is an actress who struggles to get roles, and is therefore penniless. She shares an attic without running water with her friend Pauline Mauléon, a lawyer who runs after the client. Madeleine's lover is André Bonnard, son of the owner of a large tire factory who receives little in the way of subsidies from his father.

She goes to a meeting with the theater producer Montferrand, who offers her a small role in a play, on the condition that she becomes his mistress. She refuses. He tries to rape her. She struggles and manages to escape. Once back home, she receives a visit from her friend André who comes to explain to her that to resolve their financial difficulties, he intends to marry a rich heiress and make her his mistress. Madeleine, who hoped that André would marry her and agree to work, is desperate.

Brun, security inspector, rings the two friends' apartment: Montferrand has been murdered and Madeleine is suspected. The investigating judge, Gustave Rabusset, informed, is quickly convinced of Madeleine's guilt, who begins by denying it, then when Rabusset tells her that, if she can plead self-defense, she will not necessarily be condemned, she suddenly confesses and takes her friend Pauline as her lawyer.

During the trial, Madeleine and Pauline make the affair a symbol of the oppression of females by males, and Madeleine gives a very moving interpretation of the role of outraged woman written by Pauline. She was acquitted by an all-male jury to the applause of the many ladies who came to attend the trial.

After her acquittal, Madeleine became a popular actress, and Pauline a sought-after lawyer. They leave their miserable accommodation and move into a private hotel in Boulogne. André wants to give up his marriage to the rich heiress to marry Madeleine, but his father is against it. It was then that they received a visit from Odette Chaumette, a former silent film actress whose career had been on the sidelines since the arrival of talkies. She explains to them that she killed Montferrand and that Madeleine stole his crime with the glory it brought her. She demands money from the two girls, who refuse. She is therefore going to denounce herself, but Rabusset, who, thanks to the Montferrand affair, was promoted and became first investigating judge, refuses to reopen this already judged case and orders her to come back and see him when she can charge with a crime available.

As Odette Chaumette continues to harass the two friends, Madeleine goes to see the architect Palmarède, who had concluded a life annuity with Montferrand and therefore earned a lot of money thanks to the latter's premature death. She convinces him to invest part of this money in André's father's business, which is failing. Madeleine and Pauline explain to the latter that Madeleine is not the murderer, but above all make him dangle the bailout of his company by Palmarède: he accepts the marriage, and pays Odette the money she demands to avoid compromising the Palmarède's contribution. Odette also obtains an important role in the successful play in which Madeleine performs; both play a scene which reinterprets the murder of Montferrand and in which Odette kills him to save Madeleine, the victim of an attempted rape.

Production
Ozon conceived of the film during the COVID-19 lockdowns. He described it as being "ultimately about the triumph of sorority". He said, "it ends with a play in the tradition of Jean Renoir. It's also a playful reference to The Last Metro by François Truffaut". Huppert's character was based on the actress Sarah Bernhardt. Other influences included "American screwball comedies from the 1930s", particularly films by Ernst Lubitsch and Frank Capra, as well as "the Paris of the 1930s viewed by the Americans, as in the film Victor/Victoria by Blake Edwards".

Filming took place from April to June 2022, in and around Paris and in Charleroi and Brussels, Belgium.

Release
The film screened for industry professionals on 10 January 2023 at Unifrance's Rendez-Vous with French Cinema showcase in Paris. It premiered as the opening film at the Festival Premiers Plans d'Angers on 21 January 2023.