Gentle Monster (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)
GENTLE MONSTER (2026)
Starring Léa Seydoux, Jella Haase, Laurence Rupp, Malo Blanchet, Anton Rubtsov, Nils Strunk, Sylvester Groth, Patrycja Ziółkowska, Regina Fritsch, Catherine Deneuve, Rainer Doppler, Katharina Lorenz, Baran Sönmez, Filipe Repak, Sara Sukarie, Sami Loris, Jeanne Werner, Raphael Nicholas, Harry Waterstone, Malo Blanchet and Hanna Habersetzer.
Screenplay by Marie Kreutzer.
Directed by Marie Kreutzer.
Distributed by Netflix. 115 minutes. Rated R.
You never truly know someone, no matter how well you may think you do.
The French-German-Austrian drama Gentle Monster devastatingly shows that to be true. Even the people we love most and feel most comfortable with have deep dark secrets which could shock you if they ever came to the surface.
Take Lucy (as played by Léa Seydoux). Lucy has been married to Phillip (Laurence Rupp) for about a decade. They have a young son. They seem like the perfect couple. They are in love, although they have been going through a bit of a rough patch.
Lucy had been a popular pianist who got a following for her ethereal orchestral takes on old pop hits like The Eurythmics’ “Would I Lie To You?,” The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry,” Bryan Adams’ “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)” and Phil Collins’ “A Groovy Kind of Love.” However, despite the fact that she had built up a following, was playing relatively big venues and even getting interviewed on YouTube, she gave it all up to be a stay-at-home mom when her documentary-filmmaker husband decided they should move to the German countryside.
Now, just for clarity’s sake, Lucy is not the one keeping the secret. She is the one who is being kept in the dark. And it turns out to be a huge, life-changing revelation that forces her to question everything she thought she knew about her husband and the life they built together.
Because even though he was a loving husband and a doting father, Phillip may have had an unfathomable secret. Lucy has to try to reconcile whether the man she thought she knew could be responsible for the act he was being accused of. She wanted to believe in him, but…
One day, the police came to their home and arrested Phillip and confiscated all of his computers, phones and other devices. The reason? They said that he had been accused of downloading and sending images depicting child sexual abuse.
Of course, Phillip denied the charges. He came up with explanations – many of which felt a little flimsy and seemed to keep changing. Lucy still loved him, but she was having trouble looking at the man who shared her home. And she was worried about her son. There were no outward signs that the boy had in any way been mistreated, but what if?
As you can see, Gentle Monster does not make for comfortable viewing. It is truly disturbing on multiple levels. But just because something is not easy to see, that doesn’t mean it is not important to see. Phillip’s guilt or innocence may be the catalyst of the story, but the movie is not so much about him as it is about the fallout on everyone around him.
Mostly, it is about Lucy. And Seydoux holds everything together with her devastated, numb performance. You truly believe that this is a woman whose life is imploding, and she just doesn’t know what to do about it. Seydoux negotiates Lucy’s difficult path with her tentative fear and confusion that gradually builds into strength.
Rupp’s character is tougher to read, which is of course the whole point. This is a man who is hiding something, whether it is what he is accused of, or he is innocent and is concealing something else. He appears to be a nice, doting husband and father but is he legitimately being falsely accused, or is he the gentle monster of the title? Rupp makes this ambiguity seem natural and even a bit charming. You can see why Lucy is so torn.
Some of Seydoux’s finest work comes with legendary actress Catherine Deneuve as her mother. Deneuve’s character is kept in the dark most of the film, offering comfort and counsel without knowing the full weight of what her daughter is carrying – which makes their eventual moment of full honesty all the more shattering. Deneuve and Seydoux have an empathic, sweet shorthand connection that feels lived in and loving.
The last major character – who has not really been discussed much up to now – is Jella Haase as the complicated policewoman who is investigating Phillip. She is very determined as an officer, but her personal life is much messier. Haase captures her contradictions and makes her feel human.
Writer-director Marie Kreutzer gives the whole thing a sense of quiet melancholy and disorientation. Even in basic ways the audience is trying to keep up – the dialogue regularly goes from one language to another, English to French to German.
However, the story of Gentle Monster – as horrific as it can be – is all very human. In the end, it belongs to Lucy, and to the impossible choices she is forced to make when she realizes that she may have never known the most important person in her life.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2026 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: October 30, 2026.
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