Triet’s third feature suffers somewhat from haphazard editing as it tells a fragmentary story about a psychotherapist who finds renewed motivation as a writer as she becomes embroiled in the affairs of an aspiring actress.

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While I eagerly await Justine Triet’s new Cannes Palme d’Or-winning Anatomy of a Fall (2023), her previous film, Sibyl, doesn’t quite inspire confidence. 

Her third feature then, Sibyl tells a story about an ex-alcoholic psychotherapist who finds renewed motivation as a writer, particularly after she becomes embroiled in the affairs of an aspiring actress. 

Perhaps the film itself is in need of psychotherapy as it comes across as rather schizophrenic.  Though some might argue that that is the point, I can hardly see past its somewhat haphazard editing which produces a start-stop affair filled with sudden flashbacks. 

As a film, Sibyl doesn’t really get going—it frustrates, yet at the same time, there is a great film in there waiting to burst out. 

Headlined by Virginie Efira (who later played the titular nun in Verhoeven’s provocative Benedetta (2021)) and Adele Exarchopoulos (best known for Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)) as doctor and patient respectively, Triet’s work can be quite sexually-charged as the characters try to navigate their palpable desires. 

“A bit of guilt never hurts.”

The film’s most memorable performance to me, however, is the almost caricature-like display by Sandra Huller, who plays a self-indulgent film director trying to keep her cool on a film set. 

Speaking of which, Sibyl becomes more dramatically involved when we see everyone isolated on a shoot at Stromboli, as stressors escalate and explode. 

In some way, Triet seems to be going for a meta-filmic quality—a movie about psychotherapy as cinema is forced to reckon with its inverse i.e. cinema as psychotherapy.  Fiction, reality, memory and delusion all act on each other, producing a flustering blur. 

It’s already a hazy film, to begin with, and while Sibyl is a tricky, incoherent customer, it’s clear that Triet is trying something layered though not quite succeeding.

Grade: B-

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