The Thread
At 75, Daniel Auteuil is an actor at the peak of his powers. With his craggy, expressive features the French star may not be a teenage heartthrob, but he exudes cinematic charisma. Like famous predecessors such as Jean Gabin and Yves Montand, he is also known as a singer, athough this particular talent is not much appreciated outside of France.
The Thread – released in the United States under the title, An Ordinary Case – has Auteuil as lead character, director, and co-producer with Nelly, his daughter with first wife, Emmanuelle Béart. As lawyer, Jean Monier, he is rarely off-screen in this courtroom drama set in rural France. His task is to defend a man accused of murdering his wife, a case in which he becomes emotionally invested through his belief in his client’s innocence.
The defendant, Nicolas Milik, is a large, placid bear of a man, played by Grégory Gadebois, who could not be more perfectly cast. From the moment he is carted off by the police, while doling out spaghetti to his five children, Milik protests that he is not guilty. He says it was a common experience for his wife to get drunk and go storming out of the house to sleep it off on a park bench.