Hands in gold: the great return of Isabelle Mergault to the cinema with a comedy carried by Lambert Wilson and Josiane Balasko

14 years after Giving, Giving with Daniel Auteuil, Isabelle Mergault returns to directing with Des mains en or.

Led by Lambert Wilson, Josiane Balasko and Sylvie Testud, the feature film shot in Normandy during the summer of 2022 follows François (Wilson), a famous writer and future academician. With his surgeon wife (Testud), and his circle of high-ranking friends, his life would be a perfect happiness if he did not suffer from a terrible back pain which poisons his existence.

When François, by the greatest of luck, meets the incredible Martha (Balasko) with healing hands, his back pain will ease. He will become dependent on Martha’s hands, which soothe him more than any painkiller. Between these two characters an astonishing friendship is woven, with the opportunity for them to finally seize the best that life can offer them.

The actress, screenwriter and director Isabelle Mergault had the idea for this film following a major leg problem. After having consulted, without success, many specialists, she went to see a healer a bit by chance. She explains in the press kit:

“In fact, I got lost on a road in Normandy, like in the film, I saw her poster, I went to her house and when I got out I was no longer limping.

I developed a story from this starting point by wanting to confront two people gifted with their hands, one because he writes, the other because she heals. Two people who don’t have much in common.

I wanted to make this intellectual someone who becomes dependent on a bonesetter. It came like that, I wrote very quickly, without a plan, I dialogued, without necessarily knowing where I was going. Endless planned.”

Absent from cinema screens for many years, Isabelle Mergault has not been idle for all that since the latter has played and directed many plays, in particular “Farewell, I stay” alongside Chantal Ladesou, “Her him“, “Aymee’s Reason“with Gérard Jugnot or even”Do not look at me like that” in which she gives the reply to Sylvie Vartan.

“Being on the boards is my place”

She further explains:After Giving, Giving, everything came together, including the periods when you needed to breathe a little, to take care of your loved ones. Being on the boards is my place, the place where I feel the best.

No annoyance in all this with the cinema. I arrived at the realization by chance, almost twenty years ago, when Michael White asked me to direct I find you very beautiful for which I wrote the screenplay.”

David Koskas

And for the casting of her fourth feature, Isabelle Mergault immediately thought of Lambert Wilson because of its elegance. She then chose Josiane Balasko for its popular side.

“I like this duet in which one can believe. Josiane is obviously more cultured than Martha, but I think they have in common a kind of heartfelt elegance. I was lucky to have two film personalities who know how to do everything in the field of emotion, including the big gap between laughter and tears“says the director.

hands of gold comes out this Wednesday, June 7 in our theaters.