After The Drama, the protagonists of Gentle Monster must also face a terrible secret The film starring Léa Seydoux, written and directed by Marie Kreutzer, is in competition at the Cannes Film Festival

Gentle Monster, titled by director and screenwriter Marie Kreutzer, is the pseudonym that Phil (played by Laurence Rupp) uses in the depths of the internet, unbeknownst to his wife Lucy, played by the extraordinary Léa Seydoux. The film's title, much like the username used by the man, hides a secret at the root of the rift forming in both the story and their relationship-a rift that the title itself subtly hints at.

We are not, however, in the same territory as The Drama, where the confession of Zendaya's character served more as a device to trigger the questions Kristoffer Borgli wanted to raise about the stability of a relationship. Here, it is a destructive reality that we see the French actress's character grapple with in Kreutzer's work. Because that is the true core of Gentle Monster: not merely the discovery of a reprehensible act, but how the people who love the perpetrator confront it.

It is a minute nuance, but one that makes all the difference in Kreutzer's film, competing at the Cannes Film Festival. Although Phil's secret is central -and the very engine driving the events- the work ultimately focuses on how to process it, entrusting its most important task to Seydoux's performance. Even when she discovers her husband has done horrible things, her love for him does not instantly vanish. You cannot switch off your feelings overnight like turning off a light. It is this involuntary attachment that is described as a "painful weight she clings to": she still loves a man she knows is guilty, and this contradiction causes her deep suffering. The woman does not always seem willing to accept the truth or, more accurately, she continuously questions what is put in front of her; but this is more of a hope on her part than a real conviction. A wish that there might be a logical explanation behind her husband's behavior, which she herself cannot seem to rationalize.

A reflection that the author expands by placing alongside the protagonist, Lucy, the figure of the police officer played by Jella Haase. This young woman has a father who harasses the domestic worker helping at his home, and though she deals with assaults and abuse every day in her line of work, she cannot eradicate them when it comes to her own parent.

Gentle Monster brings a feminine lens that is not complacent toward the guilty, but instead questions what to do and how to act when the monster is literally in one's own home. It is a bond that goes beyond kinship or a marriage contract, inevitably intertwining with the shame and grief of those who discover it. This is what the female characters of Gentle Monster experience. Love is one of the factors keeping Lucy from wanting to believe the vile accusations hanging over her husband, but the fear of having been a part of his existence is the hardest knot to untangle, whether one is a daughter or a wife. The film does not dwell on the indecency of people, but on how difficult it is for the women beside them to let them go -especially, and above all, to avoid feeling as though they were accomplices themselves. A slow process -too slow- whose required timeline for assimilation Kreutzer displays, without even knowing if one will ever be capable of fully getting over it.

Léa Seydoux delivers an intensely genuine and agonizing performance. She is the emotional crossroads of a work that Marie Kreutzer has stripped of all pathos, where she has refused to dwell on the most salacious details, preferring the protagonist's disbelief over the shock of what she uncovers. It is a role that Seydoux -like so many others she has inhabited throughout her career- makes entirely authentic, wearing it like a second skin. Whether she is laughing with her son, standing completely still as tears are about to well up in her eyes, or moving through all the stages of acceptance: first confusion, then anger, denial, the resurgence of affection, and, always underlying, an irreparable fear. The very fear that ultimately permeates the protagonist's existence and accompanies the audience throughout Gentle Monster.