Strayed [Les Égarés] *** (2003, Emmanuelle Béart, Gaspard Ulliel) – Classic Movie Review 12,673

André Téchiné’s complex, precise 2003 French drama film Strayed [Les Égarés] stars Emmanuelle Béart as a widowed mother, who flees Nazi-occupied Paris with her children, saved by an itinerant teenage boy (Gaspard Ulliel). 

Director André Téchiné’s delicately complex, precisely achieved 2003 French wartime drama film Strayed [Les Égarés] stars Emmanuelle Béart and Gaspard Ulliel. It is restrained and low key, particularly considering the possibilities of the material, but remains intense, powerful and gripping. Ideally cast Béart and Ulliel play a strong part in that success. Béart smoulders strongly and Ulliel is wonderfully feral.

Emmanuelle Béart plays Odile, a French widowed mother, who is escaping occupied Paris in her car with her two young children, 13-year-old Philippe (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) and seven-year-old Cathy (Clémence Meyer), in June 1940 in World War Two. When German planes bomb the civilian-filled road, Odile’s car is destroyed but the three manage to flee to the nearby woods. They are rescued by a shaven-headed, wiry 17-year-old itinerant boy, calling himself Yvan (Gaspard Ulliel), who takes them to find shelter in an abandoned rural house.

Philippe adores Yvan, He is the one who chases after Yvan to get him to stay and help in the first place, bribing him with his late father’s watch, against the wishes or instincts of the mother. But Yvan is more interested in Odile, who gradually starts to see the boy in a different light. Then two French soldiers named Georges (Jean Fornerod) and Robert (Samuel Labarthe) arrive, leaving the war as there has been an armistice. Yvan does not trust them and even intends to kill them.

The film is an adaptation of Gilles Perrault’s 2001 semi-autobiographical novel The Boy with Grey Eyes [Le Garçon aux yeux gris].

Téchiné’s fifteenth film is his first literary adaptation and a commissioned project. Téchiné writes the shrewd screenplay with his longtime collaborator Gilles Taurand, making many changes. The limited use of newsreel footage is very effective, and Philippe Sarde’s score provides a subtle background. The period atmosphere is economically achieved. It is not the focus of attention. The main issue is the human drama, and Téchiné keeps firmly on top of it. It’s kind of doomy and depressing but affecting and haunting. You don’t know where it’s headed but you know it’s not going to be somewhere good.

Les Égarés means lost, misplaced, misguided, or gone astray. Yvan is a stray and Odile is lost.

It premiered on 16 May 2003 in Cannes, where it was nominated for the Palme d’Or, and was released in France on 20 August 2003.

The cast are Emmanuelle Béart as Odile, Gaspard Ulliel as Jean Delmas alias Yvan, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet as Philippe, Clémence Meyer as Cathy, Samuel Labarthe as Robert, Jean Fornerod as Georges, and Eric Kreikenmayer as the guard.

Gaspard Ulliel had his breakthrough in Strayed after his debut in Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001). He was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actor for three consecutive years for Summer Things (2002), Strayed (2003) and A Very Long Engagement (2004), winning for the last. He gained his first César nomination for Best Actor for Saint Laurent in 2015 and won in 2017 for It’s Only the End of the World (2016),

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