Between Two Worlds

Between Two Worlds (original title Ouistreham, 2022) is Emmanuel Carrère's social drama, available to watch online on iFILM. A well-known writer moves to the north coast of France and takes a job scrubbing floors, hiding who she really is.

Marianne, played by Juliette Binoche, is gathering material for a book about poverty and decides to live it from the inside. She cleans cabins on the ferry between Ouistreham and Portsmouth, chases scraps of shift work, and counts every euro. Bit by bit she grows close to her real co-workers — a single mother named Christèle and other women for whom hardship is not research but the texture of every day. The warmer those bonds become, the heavier the lie weighs, because sooner or later the truth about her real profession will surface.

Carrère adapted the film from journalist Florence Aubenas's bestselling exposé and cast non-professional actresses — actual cleaners playing close to themselves — opposite Binoche. That friction between a star and unscripted faces is exactly where the film lives. It's an honest, uncomfortable look at whether you can truly grasp someone else's need from the outside. Stream Between Two Worlds (2022) online on iFILM.