Hippocrates **
Dir: Thomas Lilti.
With: Vincent Lacoste, Jacques Gamblin, Reda Kateb, Marianne Denicourt. 102
mins. Cert: 15
This oddly bloodless
social-realist exercise finds French writer-director Thomas Lilti striving to
redefine doctors as distinct from their superheroic small-screen equivalents;
the corridors patrolled by boyish intern Thomas (Vincent Lacoste) house only
report-fudging, short-staffing and shonky equipment. UK clinicians may recognise
much, yet the earnest resistance to melodrama proves self-defeating: despite
characterful ensemble work in the vein of Maïwenn’s Polisse, scenes of spinal taps and form-filling outnumber
life-or-death resuscitations, and its dramatic pulse weakens scene-by-scene.
The result may honour the daily reality of medical professionals – the finale’s
a credibly fractious staff meeting – but it makes for a patchy, hesitant
dispatch, more “er…” than e.r.
Hippocrates opens at London's Ciné Lumière today.
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