The Unknown Girl ties everything up in the end

For about the first 90 minutes of The Unknown Girl, I sat rather unimpressed in my leather chair in one of the small theaters at Soho Screening Rooms. Then, as the last half hour unfolded, directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne tied together multiple plot lines like a beautiful bow on a Christmas present.

Without spoiling the ending, the film centres around Dr. Jenny Davin, played by actor Adèle Haenel, who hears someone knocking on her front door to her practice. Because it is late at night, Davin feels uncomfortable answering. The next day, police show up to inform her that the person knocking was a woman – who was caught on her surveillance footage – and she has been found dead at a nearby river.

Davin, feeling immense guilt, makes it her mission to find out who this girl was, and for the rest of the film the Dardenne brothers take us through a strange roller coaster of a story – except that coaster splits up on to multiple tracks, until the last 30 or so seconds, when the cars join to finish on one line.

The film’s main strength, besides its satisfying finish, is how it is always focused through the lens of Davin’s character: we are with her throughout every step of her journey to find out who this ‘unknown girl’ is. And boy, it’s a strange, unpredictable and exciting ride. The initial reviews of The Unknown Girl, however, have not been kind, with many critics citing a predictable narrative and a lack of excitement. Perhaps this is due to the fact that many English-speaking critics expect much more from foreign films, but for me – while these criticisms are certainly fair enough for the first 90 minutes – the ending is so well-orchestrated that I realised why the rest of the movie was made the way it is.

One of the main themes throughout the film is truth. At first, multiple characters do not wish to disclose what they know, where they were, or what they were doing the night of the girl’s death. Meanwhile, in a separate case, Jamie’s intern Julien – played by Olivier Bonnaud – tells Jamie personal information, as an explanation for why he quit his dream to be a doctor. It is in these closing scenes that we feel a sense of intimacy, and step deeper into these people’s lives. I felt like I was right there with Davin, hearing their stories and becoming emotionally exhausted, despite the fact this is a fiction.

Again, I won’t dive too much into the plot, because I don’t want to ruin the delayed gratification that you may experience if you do choose to invest just under two hours to watch this movie. But I will say that if you want a movie that makes you think about the importance of telling the truth, The Unknown Girl articulates it in an interesting way. And, being a reporter by trade, finding the truth is a theme I can appreciate in any movie I watch.