Synopsis
In the Beginning (À l'origine, 2009) is a French drama by Xavier Giannoli you can watch online on iFILM. François Cluzet plays a small-time swindler who walks into a depressed corner of northern France and passes himself off as the man in charge of a stalled highway project.
The scam works almost too well. He hires dozens of locals, gets the machines rolling and skims the money — until the lie grows roots. The mayor of a tiny village on the route, played by Emmanuelle Devos, believes in the road completely, and her faith starts to reach the conman himself. Soon he is trapped between finishing a highway he never meant to build and abandoning the people who trusted him. Gérard Depardieu and singer-actress Soko appear in support.
Giannoli took the idea from a real news item and turned it into a slow, searching film about a fraud who accidentally becomes a better man. It screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Stream In the Beginning (2009) online on iFILM.
Starring
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