Anne Parillaud makes control look difficult, even when she is playing someone trained to kill. Her work in Nikita is reason enough to watch it, giving an implausible action thriller a person worth worrying about.
Fi1m perspective
In Nikita (1990), Anne Parillaud plays a trained killer whose competence never quite reassures us. She gives Luc Besson's conversion of a punk into a government assassin a credibility the plotting scarcely earns, without letting the transformation seem simple. We were tense during her initiation mission because she makes staying in control look like a task she might not manage. Besson's emphasis on glamour cannot quite tidy away that distress.
The film gives her room for romance and quirky comedy without always earning its changes of mood. Tchéky Karyo's Bob and Jean-Hugues Anglade's Marco have enough personality to make the romantic triangle worth following, though Besson leaves too much of their lives unwritten. Olivier Mauffroy's editing is better at sustaining an action sequence than at joining these different kinds of film. Éric Serra's score helps restore momentum when the plotting falters. Parillaud holds our attention through the uneven stretches, but she cannot repair the script.
Nikita was the breakthrough, after earlier French film work that included two collaborations with actor-director Alain Delon. International roles followed, including the vampire Marie in John Landis's Innocent Blood (1992) and Queen Mother Anne of Austria in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998). Typecasting remained a concern, but those parts were hardly repeats of the government assassin. Back in French cinema, she played Jeanne, a film director, in Catherine Breillat's Sex Is Comedy (2002). They worked together again on the period drama Une vieille maîtresse (2007).
Parillaud trained in judo and firearms for Nikita, but the preparation does not turn her into an untroubled action figure. What we value is how clearly she shows the effort and distress that persist when her character becomes capable. The romantic comedy matters too, allowing an ease that would be missed if she were cast only for ferocity. Start with Nikita, accepting its abrupt changes of mood, and give her quieter moments as much attention as the killing.
Biography
Anne Parillaud is a French actress. Born in Paris on 6 May 1960, she studied ballet while at school and made her film debut at the age of 16 in Michel Lang's L'hôtel de la plage (1978).
She became known internationally for her title role in Luc Besson's Nikita (1990), for which she received the César Award for Best Actress in 1991. Her other film credits include The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), Innocent Blood (1992) and What Time Is It? (1989).
