With his newest work, director Lucas Belvaux continues his interest in using the thriller genre to explore issues of class and society. Based on the real-life 1978 kidnapping of wealthy playboy Edouard-Jean Empain, Rapt stars Yvan Attal as Stanislas Graff, a wildly successful but self-centered and arrogant CEO abducted by a brutal group who want €50 million for his return. As investigators move in on the case and uncover Graff’s various debts and affairs, his family and business partners become increasingly embarrassed and upset. So much so, in fact, that they decide they’d rather not pay the ransom, a decision which takes the film into highly original and divergent territory. Attal is mesmerizing, taking his character through wrenching emotional and physical shifts, supported by stellar work from Anne Consigny and Claire Denis regular Alex Descas. Thought-provoking on many different levels, Rapt offers genre entertainment with brains and style.


Written by Lucas Belvaux. Photographed by Pierre Milon. With Yvan Attal, Anne Consigny, André Marcon, Françoise Fabian (125 min, Films Distribution).