Julia Ducournau's Palme d'Or winner "Titane" seeks paradise by the dashboard light
- Peter Howell
- Oct 1, 2021
- 1 min read
Updated: Oct 23, 2021

Starring Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon, Myriem Akheddiou, Garance Marillier and Laïs Salameh. Written and directed by Julia Ducournau. Opens Oct. 1 at TIFF Bell Lightbox and Cineplex theatres. 148 minutes. R
⭐⭐⭐
Peter Howell
Movie Critic
“Jump in the Cadillac, girl, let’s put some miles on it,” Bruno Mars sings in “That’s What I Like." But he's not thinking of something as literal and as transgressive as "Titane."
Julia Ducournau's Cronenbergian Palme d'Or winner from Cannes 2021 is the story of a dancer, Alexia (Agathe Rousselle), whose obsession with cars leads to exceedingly strange behaviour — and with outcomes straight out of sci-fi horror and extreme romances.
Alexia, a misanthropic loner, gets jiggy with a Caddy and finds herself with an unbelievable problem.
This may be, incredibly, the least of her concerns. She has a titanium plate in her head, the result of a childhood car crash, which may or may not be related to her compulsion to commit random acts of murder.
To conceal her crimes, she adopts the identity of a long-missing child, who would now be about her age. She'll have to convince the child's grieving father, Vincent (Vincent Lindon), a firefighter with serious body-image issues of his own.
"Titane" is everything you've heard, and more. It doesn't brake for the squeamish.
But it's not so shocking if you've seen "Raw," the writer/director's arresting first feature.
Ducournau is a vital talent, a filmmaker of mad vision and uncanny power. I think, though, that her best is still to come.
Henry Ford's ghost just had a heart attack.
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@peterhowellfilm