Cannes Film Festival 2025: The Bettencourt Affair at the Heart of the Gritty "The Richest Woman in the World"
Loosely and fiercely inspired by billionaire Liliane Bettencourt, Thierry Klifa's film starring Isabelle Huppert, presented out of competition on Sunday evening in the official selection, is a real laugh.
By Yves JaegléMoney doesn't buy happiness. It seems so, but we don't know. Marianne Farrère knows it. Liliane Bettencourt (1922-2017), billionaire owner of the L'Oréal galaxy, knew it too. In "The Richest Woman in the World," presented this Sunday evening in the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival , Isabelle Huppert plays—and how well, as always—Marianne, who is actually Liliane. But shh, we mustn't say it officially.
In the press kit, as in the film itself, "a creative work very loosely inspired by real events," no real names are mentioned. Perhaps not so much to avoid the wrath of the brand's heirs, the abuse of weakness case having been judged in 2015-2016, but because the man accused of having benefited for hundreds of millions from the largesse of "the richest woman in the world," whom he had seduced, the photographer François-Marie Banier , sentenced to four years in prison suspended and a fine of 375,000 euros, is still alive.
Le Parisien
