Review: ‘Rapt’
"Rapt" keeps upending your expectations. It's a kidnapping thriller, but it's not exactly what you'd call a white-knuckled thrill ride. It's a damning portrait of society's callous upper class, but it's not as clear-cut in its judgments as you'd expect. And even when the movie ends when you think it will, it pushes a little further into a completely unpredictable emotional terrain that deepens and complicates what came before.
This French film from writer-director Lucas Belvaux introduces us to Stanislas Graff (Yvan Attal), the rich and powerful head of an anonymous corporation. The first few minutes of the film establish all we think we need to know about Graff: He's a captain of industry, he's got a lithesome mistress, he's got a beautiful wife (Anne Consigny) and kids who know nothing about the mistress. He's a master of the universe.
That universe comes crashing down on him one morning when he's kidnapped out of his car by masked, armed men. As Graff is held hostage, his wife, his corporation's board, and the police work together (and, sometimes, against each other) to free him, while the tabloids start to reveal the many imperfections in his impeccable public image.
Inspired by the 1978 kidnapping and rescue of Baron Edouard-Jean Empain, "Rapt" may at first appear to be a slick thriller, what with its quick-cutting opening montage that lays out Graff's enviable life. But once Graff gets nabbed, Belvaux shifts into a slower gear, showing us how the different parties react to the changing situation: the kidnappers, Graff's family, and the police. There's an elegant chess-like precision to "Rapt" that never boasts the verbal gamesmanship of a David Mamet thriller or the muscular set pieces of a Michael Mann action movie. Instead, Belvaux gives the proceedings an intriguing, almost mathematical chilliness that's all the more gripping because a man's life hangs in the balance.
Reviews have been quick to point out the obvious parallels between Graff and other well-known money men who have been felled of late because of their corruption. But it's to the film's credit that Graff isn't an easy symbol to be kicked around for the audience's satisfaction. Attal is much sneakier in his portrayal of Graff: With his aristocratic features, he projects an effortless arrogance, but as his safe return to his family becomes more uncertain we see how the character's fear starts to eat away at his privileged aura. There's no sense that Graff is getting some sort of grand comeuppance or paying for an entire class of people's sins. "Rapt" isn't interested in something so simplistic.
Besides, it's hard not to sympathize with him. Quite ingeniously, "Rapt" watches as the people who should be most concerned about him start to ponder their own agendas. As the man overseeing Graff's company in his absence, André Marcon is nicely poker-faced, arguably more concerned about how the fallout over Graff's tarnished public image will affect business than whether they get Graff back in one piece. The Graff family members are equally torn, with Graff's wife and mother coming to terms with his infidelity and gambling problems. What comes through clearly in all the scenes outside of Graff's kidnapping is a certain air of pragmatic detachment to the situation. Graff may have his failings, but "Rapt" argues that he's merely a cog in a society that prizes good public relations, healthy profits, and a strict adherence to the status quo above all else. (The police don't get off easy, either: Their interest in capturing the kidnappers at times seems a higher priority than ensuring Graff's safety.)
The cat-and-mouse movements of "Rapt" ultimately play out to their logical conclusion, but, without giving anything away, let's just say that Graff's ultimate fate ends up not being determined by whether or not he's freed. Belvaux can be accused of a slack pace, but that considered approach works wonderfully for an extended finale that measures the lasting emotional toll of the kidnapping on all those involved. Even at the conclusion, "Rapt" doesn't settle for obvious payoffs. Instead, you're left with a sense that the Graffs of the world will always be with us. Even worse, there may be more of them coming down the road, and there's nothing we can do about it.
Grade: A-
