‘Acid’: Cannes Review

Dir: Just Philippot. France. 2023. 100mins

Water is death in Acid, an affecting thriller that tracks the sudden arrival of lethal acid rain showers across France, creating widespread panic and forcing a fractured family to confront its fissures. Expanding his 2018 short, director Just Philippot combines aspects of the disaster film and the domestic drama, approaching each genre with understatement to deliver a modest study of personal and societal upheaval – and refusing to offer tidy resolutions on either front. Guillaume Canet gives an intriguing performance as a father torn between his own desires and those of the daughter he is trying to protect, anchoring a film in which the familiar sound of thunder can leave the viewer unsettled.

There’s an environmental angle to Acid’s horror but Philippot doesn’t foreground his commentary

Scheduled for release in France in September, Acid plays Cannes’ Midnight section, with international audiences sure to be inrigued by the picture’s apocalyptic scenario. But Philippot keeps the spectacle small-scale, demonstrating a knack for concocting suspense sequences from the simplest of setups. 

Canet stars as Michal; on probation and wearing an electronic bracelet, he is hoping to build a life with his girlfriend Karin (Suliane Brahim) who is in hospital suffering from severe injuries to her legs. But soon, greater concerns arise: a mass of powerful storms from South America has made its way to France, bringing a flurry of acid rain showers that terrify the populace. Michal and his ex-wife Elise (Laetitia Dosch) come together to ensure that their teenage daughter Selma (Patience Munchenbach) is safe and, like other survivors, try to make their way out of France before the next deadly downpour.

Philippot, whose 2020 feature debut The Swarm was selected for Critics’ Week, manages to make cloudy skies a harbinger of creeping dread in Acid – especially once we see how devastating these storms can be. It’s not simply the dangerous drops falling from the sky that are alarming — anywhere the rain lands has the potential to be a death trap. Soon, the scarcity of potable water becomes a major worry, and even navigating across muddy puddles can be a nerve-racking proposition.

There’s an environmental angle to Acid’s horror but Philippot doesn’t foreground his commentary, instead letting his premise be a springboard for terse set pieces, and developing the dynamics within this family. It’s clear that Michal and Elise aren’t particularly close since their divorce, and when he and Selma eventually have to strike out on their own, their frayed bond will be challenged by his insistence that they travel to Belgium to be closer to the hospitalised Karin, while Selma would prefer they take shelter with Elise’s brother. Michal chooses himself over his daughter’s wishes, and Canet doesn’t try to make his character overly sympathetic. As a result, Acid subtly subverts a familiar trope of the disaster-film genre, in which the brave father risks everything for the good of his child. Michal noticeably doesn’t operate in such a manner, proving to be a selfish individual in a few different ways over the course of the film.

The relatively low-budget Acid successfully simulates the sense that all of France is being endangered, as Philippot incorporates panoramic stormy skies and disquieting thunder claps. Some excellent makeup work conveys what happens to those unlucky enough to be caught outside during these cloudbursts, but the picture’s subdued, realistic approach grounds these cataclysmic events in the everyday anxieties of a father who is trying to repair his relationship with his daughter.

As Selma, Munchenbach emerges as the film’s moral centre, providing her character with a conscience that will be tested by her dad. When they encounter others along their journey, Michal (perhaps not unreasonably) tends to be wary, but Selma leads with kindness, their warring outlooks sometimes causing conflict. But just as the film avoids a tritely reassuring ending to his introduction of these killer showers, so too does Acid side-step a pat reconciliation between father and daughter; with Philippot suggesting that storm clouds are always on the horizon.