Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard’s Cult Thriller ‘Karma’ Earns 6-Minute Cannes Ovation

“Karma,” Guillaume Canet’s gripping religious cult thriller starring Oscar-winning actor Marion Cotillard, earned a six-minute standing ovation at Cannes on Friday.

The edge-of-your-set French movie, which is produced by Iconoclast with Canet’s Caneo banner, world premiered in the Special Screenings section in the official selection. 

“Karma” is the second film that Canet has brought to Cannes as a director, following his English-language debut “Blood Ties.” It’s also his sixth movie with Cotillard, and a total departure from the other films which were dramedies (“Little White Lies”) and family films (“Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom”) in which Cotillard had supporting roles.

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In “Karma,” Cotillard plays Jeanne, a French woman with a mysterious past who is living in Spain with her boyfriend. When her godson goes missing, Jeanne flees the country as a prime suspect and is forced to seek refuge with a brutal religious cult she escaped years earlier. 

Cotillard, who stars opposite Denis Menochet, Luis Zahera and Leonardo Sbaraglia, was visibly moved as she drew rounds of applauses as the camera turned to her during the standing ovation. 

Canet, who held back tears, grabbed the microphone and thanked the cast, ending with Cotillard, praising her “exceptional performance, and telling her “I wrote this role for you and you did it justice.” Addressing her, Zahera and Menochet, he said “I give you all three the greatest acting award in the world.”

Canet and Cotillard, who recently divorced, attended the gala screening with their son Marcel. In an interview with Variety at Cannes, Cotillard talked about how she balanced worked and parenting, and how that factored into her decision to step away from Hollywood. “When I do a movie, I have this tendency to choose very deep and intense roles. There’s a part of me that goes away. That doesn’t really fit the life of a child.” 

Although she recently appeared in the fourth season of Apple’s “The Morning Show” last year, she hasn’t starred in a U.S. movie since “Assassin’s Creed.” In the last 10 years, Cotillard has instead been choosing more intimate projects driven by European auteurs. She is also at Cannes with Bertrand Mandico’s dramedy “Roma Elastica.”

Pathé is handling international sales on “Karma.” The movie is part of Cannes’ new mandate to host big, audience-friendly French movie premieres.