Commissaire Jules Maigret has had a formidable multimedia career since Georges Simenon created the character back in 1930, and he’s been variously portrayed by everyone from Charles Laughton, Michel Simon, and Jean Gabin, to Michael Gambon, Gérard Depardieu, and even Rowan Atkinson.
Writer/director Pascal Bonitzer here adapts Simenon’s 1960 novel Maigret Et Les Vieillards (one of 75 books!), and updates the tale to what looks like the early 2000s, with this Maigret (Denis Podalydès) in his standard overcoat and hat, and puffing away at a pipe, but continually refusing to get a mobile phone.
Our detective is called upon when a former ambassador, Monsieur Berthier-Lagès, is found murdered at the Quai d’Orsay (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Suspicion quickly falls upon devoted maid Jacotte (Anne Alvaro), who supposedly discovered the body, and her endless stalling of the investigation doesn’t exactly help to prove her innocence.
Maigret (who’s regularly seen strolling pensively along the Seine) discovers that the deceased had been having a long affair with a princess, no less, and a trove of suggestive letters leads him to not-so-delicately question her family. And the cast really sells the ensuing interrogation scenes, even though director Bonitzer tends to handle much of this like an episode of a prestigious streaming series.
Also known as Maigret Et Le Mort Amoureux (and Maigret In Society for a while too), this is worth catching for Podalydès’ reading of the classic character: he plays the Commissaire as serious and demanding, but not an aloof show-off (like Sherlock Holmes) or weird eccentric (like Hercule Poirot).
It’s notable too that creator Simenon might have disapproved of how much Maigret’s cool wife Louise (Irène Jacob) is given to do here, and how she regularly offers warmth, advice, and humour. She never figured that much in any other Maigret film-and-TV tales (in the Gérard Depardieu version she appears for mere moments), and Podalydès’ detective obviously adores her.
Jules Maigret? Love? Imagine that…
Maigret And The Dead Lover commences at cinemas on September 3.
Follow Fifty+SA on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
