It seems as if director Martin Provost’s mission is to make films about female artists who struggled to earn recognition during their lifetimes. In 2008’s “Seraphine” he introduced moviegoers to self-taught painter Séraphine de Senlis who, inspired by her strong faith and her love for religious artwork, helped redefine the “naive” style, with her paintings now being admired all over the world. Sadly, Séraphine died penniless in an asylum and life was so unkind to her that there is no certainty as to when exactly she died. Life was kinder to the subject of Provost’s new film; author Violette Leduc (Emmanuelle Devos) who, like Séraphine, suffered of mental illness while dealing with her creative output, but who, luck had it, could count on the support of some of the most important writers of the time, who helped her books achieve the recognition they deserved.

In one of the film’s cruelest moments, Violette visits a small bookstore and asks if they carry her book “L’Asphyxie” - “not for me, it’s for a friend” she explains - the clerk tells her that she hasn’t even heard of the book, leading the author to explode into a tantrum that sums up the film’s notion of Leduc being always on the verge of a breakdown. If the film lets her become almost too hysterical for her own good (and for that of the narrative), Devos confidently bites into the performance with aplomb and subtle gusto. The actress doesn’t seem to care that part of what made Leduc so unstable was her dissatisfaction with her looks, and scene after scene we see her soliloquizing about how ugly she is.

While Devos isn’t classically beautiful, she’s always radiating onscreen to the point where we as audiences never really think of her as “not beautiful”. But she must be aware of this, because she allows the screenplay’s obsession with looks to give her unflattering quips, until the time arrives when we realize that her mommy issues are behind it. In her scenes with Catherine Hiegel, who plays her innocently cruel mother, we see Devos allowing Violette to be reduced to nothing. She shrinks in front of our eyes, her severe mouth becoming the center of an even more severe frown. This is acting of the highest quality, and while the film tends to adhere to good old fashioned biopic conventions to the point of becoming almost too predictable, Devos’ work should be getting the recognition it deserves.