Bastards (2013 film)

Plot

Marco (Vincent Lindon), a sailor who has cut off ties with most of his family, returns home after the suicide of his brother-in-law. At the urging of his sister Sandra (Julie Bataille), who believes that her husband’s death was caused by one of their creditors, Marco tries to avenge his family. He moves into an apartment above that occupied by the creditor, Edouard Laporte, and begins an affair with his wife, Raphaëlle (Chiara Mastroianni). Marco discovers that his sister is deep in debt and that his niece, Justine (Lola Créton), has been hospitalized and might need reconstructive surgery as her vagina has been badly damaged. After some investigation he believes that Laporte was the one who injured his niece by penetrating her with a corn cob.

Justine eventually runs away from the hospital she was staying at and friends of hers offer Marco access to images of her going to a sex club with Laporte and her father. After viewing the images Marco realizes that both his sister and his brother-in-law allowed Laporte to use their daughter for sexual favours in return for money to keep their failing shoe factory afloat. Justine and her friends leave together but she deliberately crashes the car they are driving, killing them all.

Meanwhile Laporte, discovering that Raphaëlle and Marco are sleeping together, leaves her, taking their young son with him. When he returns to collect a few of his son’s things and to tell Raphaëlle that he is moving to Geneva with the boy, Marco tries to stop him. In the ensuing fight Marco is shot and killed by Raphaëlle.

Sandra receives a video in the mail which she watches with Justine’s doctor. It is a sex tape involving Justine, her father, Laporte and another woman. The tape shows Justine’s father holding a corn cob.

Production

Claire Denis wrote the film specifically for Vincent Lindon after she expressed interest in working with him again and he told her he would appear in whatever she wrote. The film was heavily inspired by Akira Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well whose French title Les salauds dorment en paix translates literally to Bastards Sleep in Peace.

The film also marks Denis's eighth film with Alex Descas and her seventh with Grégoire Colin.

Reception

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 65% based on 48 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10, while Metacritic gives a weighted average rating of 69 based on reviews from 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."