A Film by Mathieu Amalric
Starring Vicky Krieps & Arieh Worthalter
Mathieu Amalric’s deeply emotional drama HOLD ME TIGHT, a selection of the Cannes International Film Festival, nominated for Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay César Awards.
Adapted from a stage play by Claudine Galéa, HOLD ME TIGHT stars Vicky Krieps as Clarisse, a mother coping with great emotional upheaval, and Arieh Worthalter (Girl) as Marc, the husband she leaves behind. Krieps gives a riveting performance as a woman on the run from her family for reasons that aren’t immediately clear. Amalric’s sophisticated narrative alternates between scenes of Clarisse’s road trip and of Marc as he cares for their two children, Paul, and Lucie, a pianist prodigy. While giving clues along the way, Amalric keeps viewers uncertain as to the reality of what they’re seeing until the film’s final moments.
With a dual career as an acclaimed actor (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, A Christmas Tale, Quantum of Solace) and a writer-director (Barbara, The Blue Room, On Tour), Amalric’s sixth directorial outing is a daring, poignant and unpredictable story about love, absence, grief, and memory. Luxembourg-born actress Vicky Krieps came to international attention with her performance opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread and has since starred in Bergman Island by Mia Hansen-Love, Old by M. Night Shyamalan, and the upcoming Corsage by Marie Kreutzer.
HOLD ME TIGHT’s soundtrack includes piano pieces by Ravel, Debussy, Messiaen, Beethoven, Rameau, Schönberg and Rachmaninov; the film features clips of legendary pianist Martha Argerich performing Ravel, Mozart and Chopin.