Maigret et le mort amoureux (2026) Maigret et les vieillards (Maigret in Society)
IMDb runtime is 1h and 20m, rated 6.0 by 97 cinematizens.
Genre: krimi.
DNA: France.
Verdict: Diverting.
Tagline: Living in past is passé.
Eternal Maigret plods on. This incarnation has neither the bulk nor the patience of the original, but he is persistent and competent. His team, though often pictured, does little, and, well, Lucas is a schoolboy! Lucas!
The maid stole the show in a tour de force performance of inner pain. All that was undermined by the gratuitous twist at the end, which is not in the book. Once again it seemed to me that the writer and director did not understand their own work and undercut it.
Spoiler.
I found the plot resolution inadequate in the book, and it is faithfully reproduced in the film, though other liberties were taken as in the coda. The maid I can understand. But the count, no? Hypochondria is mentioned but not developed. Nor does the hearsay remark, ‘They won’t let me!’ have any explanation at all. None.
I couldn’t find any opinionators on Good Reads to set me straight.
As to the maid’s piety, I thought the point was that a secular man like Maigret would miss the signs of that, or seeing them, would not fully grasp their significance as a motivation. I liked that. Simenon sometimes did have Maigret err.
But would monsieur le count have committed suicide while sitting at his desk editing his memoirs, having given no earlier indication of his emotions?
The variations the title noted above indicate something. The French is explicit: Maigret and the Old Ones and indicates the theme that these persons who live in the past of an ever decreasing circle. Neither the lovers nor society hits that nail on the head. But Penguin has always been free with translations, despite its pious claims to the contrary.
I was pleased with myself for recognising Olivier Rabourdin as the prosecutor. Although this character has no place in the book. He has been added to give Maigret a sounding board. for his internal musings. Also missing from the film is the opening paean to Paris in the springtime when Maigret goes to work riding on an open-air bus platform. That would have made a nice travelogue.
***
We saw it at the Palace in Leichhardt on a Wednesday late morning as part of the Alliance Française film festival. We selected three items from the many on offer and this was one of them. Of late I have been watching other French films on TV5Monde+ from New Brunswick, Quebec, Belgium, Switzerland, and Senegal as well as France.
Georges Simenon wrote 75 novels featuring Jules Maigret along with 28 short stories between 1931 and 1972. That means he completed 2 or more titles each year. (In addition, Simenon was also publishing other novels at about the same clip!) Maigret has worked on the radio, podcasts, audiobooks, paperback, hardcovers, and celluloid.
One internet pundit declares that 34 actors have embodied Maigret. He has been German, Dutch, English, Russian, Czech, Mexican, Japanese, as well as Italian in the actors who have played him: Harry Baur, Boris Tenin, Richard Harris, Rupert Davies, Charles Laughton, Michael Gambon, Gino Cervi, Benjamin Wainwright, Rowan Atkinson, Jean Gabin, Jean Richard, Gerar Depardieu, Denis Podalydès, and — best for last — Bruno Cremer. M 2