Dheepan decides to go to Europe to avoid having to fight for the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. To make sure he gets out, he puts together a fake family: as his wife, Yalini, a young woman ready to do anything to escape to England; and as his daughter, Illayaal a 9-year-old orphan girl. This “family” of three is sent to live in a violent suburb of Paris, where Dheepan becomes the caretaker of an apartment building. But he and Yalini soon realize they have traded one sort of violence for anther…

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After winning Best Screenplay in Cannes for Un héros très discret, the Grand Prize for Un prophète, and a standing ovation for De rouille et d’os, Jacques Audiard, winner of 9 Césars, has finally achieved the Holy Grail: he was awarded the Golden Palm by the Coen Brothers for Dheepan. Is this his best film? Not really. The story of a severe, austere life, the movie is far from the (melo)dramatic pretension of the previous films of this idolized director, who this time around pares down the filmmaking, instead giving his characters enough room to grow. This is the perfect environment for Antonythasan Jesuthasan and Kalieaswari Srinivasan, two amateur actors, to deliver gripping performances and bring a remarkable touch to a social drama that is nonetheless somewhat simplistic, unfolding without much artistry or imagination.