Winter spirit on Arte: what is this chilling Christmas tale worth with Audrey Fleurot?


Arte is broadcasting the three episodes of the “Spirit of Winter” mini-series this evening, worn by Audrey Fleurot (“HPI”). A thriller that enjoys a real atmosphere and flirts with the Gothic, without managing to carry us away. A little disappointment.

What is it about ?

On this Christmas morning, Nathalie wakes up, haunted by a dismal presentiment and the impression that, 14 years earlier, when little Alice was adopted, something would have followed them home.

While Nathalie tries to dissipate this anxiety, her husband, Marc, goes to the airport to pick up his parents who have come for the party. A winter camera then sets in during which her daughter’s behavior appears more and more strange and incoherent…

Thursday November 10 at 8:55 p.m. on Arte, and available on arte.tv until December 9

Who is it with?

After HPI and Les Combattantes, Audrey Fleurot continues the big gaps that she loves so much and puts on a Hitchcockian blonde for the most beautiful effect to portray Nathalie, the heroine of Esprit d’hiver, a mini-series of which Arte is broadcasting the three episodes.

Opposite her, Cédric Kahn (La Prière, Fête de famille) embodies Marc, Nathalie’s husband, while the young Lily Taïeb (The Good Wife, Three memories of my youth) lends her features to Alice, the enigmatic daughter of the couple.

A nice leading trio that Malina Ioana-Ferrante (Our battles), Clémentine Verdier (Tomorrow belongs to us), or even Corinne Masiero (Captain Marleau), loyal to director Cyril Mennegun (Louise Wimmer), complete in a tasty cameo.

Jean-Claude Lother/Arte

Well worth a look ?

By adapting Laura Kasischke’s 2013 novel with the help of screenwriter Florence Vignon, Cyril Mennegun offers Audrey Fleurot a real counter-intuitive role – that of a troubled woman caught up in her past and her neuroses – which allows to the actress adored by the French to reveal new facets of her talent.

But the filmmaker, to whom we owe the very successful Louise Wimmer (César 2013 for Best First Film), also misses the opportunity to offer the truly harrowing Gothic thriller that we were entitled to expect from such a pitch and such an atmosphere.

A writer in need of inspiration, Nathalie finally manages to complete the manuscript she has been working on for so long when the first of the three episodes that make up Esprit d’hiver begins.

Very quickly, when her husband left to pick up his parents at the airport for Christmas dinner, she finds herself alone with her daughter Alice in their huge house buried under the snow. And their icy tete-a-tete, made up of unspoken words, reproaches, and rivalry, soon turns into a strange closed session. In which scenes from Nathalie’s novel seem to mingle with memories from the day she went to look for Lily in an orphanage in Eastern Europe where an evil spirit may well have lurked.


Jean-Claude Lother

Mysterious calls that sound like a threat (coming from beyond the grave?), the reality that gradually distorts around the heroine, her growing paranoia. Everything is done so that the viewer also begins to gradually lose his bearings and his trouillometer gets carried away. Unfortunately, after a first episode full of promise, it is very quickly that boredom sets in in this far too wise and repetitive Christmas tale.

The staging is sorely lacking in rhythm, the script is too talkative, and the series quickly comes down to seeing Audrey Fleurot wandering through the endless corridors of her house. Which we quickly understood that the labyrinthine aspect was designed to echo the troubled and broken mind of the character.

Despite interesting themes such as artistic creation, impossible motherhood, adoption, and the complicated relationship between a mother and her teenage daughter, Esprit d’hiver never really takes off and does not go far enough in the fantastic, the gothic horror, or the angst to really come up with something interesting.

There remains the quite honorable performances of the actors – the young Lily Taïeb in the lead – and an end which has the merit of challenging and asking questions. Like an evil spirit coming to haunt us… a bit too late unfortunately.



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