6 years after the release of his last feature film, Jean Paul Salomé returns to directing La daronne, adaptation du livre with the same title by Hannelore Cayre, with as headliners other than Isabelle Huppert and Hippolyte Girardot, two essential of French cinema.
Synopsis
Patience Portefeux, widow in her fifties and mother of two young daughters, is a translator-interpreter for the stup brigade. Having had parents a tad bandits as a child, she has little judgment between good and evil. That's why, upon learning that the son of her mother's caregiver is involved in drug trafficking, she decides to thwart his arrest. The opportunity to recover several tons of shit then presents itself to her. She decides to dealer them to offer herself a better life while remaining generous with those around her. 
The little secrets of filming
La daronne, a great literary success, did not only have a director at his feet to adapt the script. Indeed, Jean Paul Salomé had to stand out from his compatriots and manages to convince Hannelore because he is the only one to promise to keep a certain balance between comedy on the one hand and police mechanics on the other. He also immediately proposed Isabelle Huppert for the lead role. Hannelore finds the idea wonderful but does not imagine that it will approve. However, when Jean Paul calls her to offer her the role, she immediately accepts. Indeed, by pure coincidence, she just finished the book on the plane and loved it. For more realism, the director met court interpreters from whom he was able to draw inspiration, especially for the accuracy of the words often used in the field of dealing. He also asked one of them to write the texts in Arabic, a language that Isabelle had to learn phonetically to be credible in her lines. Jean Paul Salomé also wanted to highlight the cohabitation between Wenzhou communities, North Africans and Orthodox Jews in a district of Paris that he knows well, since he himself lives there. 
The daronne, in brief
Hannelore Cayre, a former criminal lawyer, wanted to denounce the complexity of the judicial system. That's why she highlights a woman embarrassed at the idea of doing the police a favor. Indeed, it helps them, so to speak, to put young dealers in prison for the sale of "3 grams of shit". The viewer is led to reflect on the extent of the punishment in relation to the act. It is finally the friendship she has with a caregiver that will make her take the plunge and break the law. Between comedy and thriller, this film portrays an amoral woman. Yet, doing it out of altruism, she makes us want to forgive her. This is the complexity of the judicial system, which must remain impartial by simply following the law, forgetting any form of humanism.
