The Goldman Case

Southeast US Premiere

One of the most acclaimed films from the Cannes Film Festival, renowned French filmmaker Cédric Kahn’s enthralling courtroom drama delves into the mesmerizing 1976 trial of radical criminal Pierre Goldman and builds to a gripping, grandstanding climax. As rigorous in reworking the legal drama template as Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict and Justine Triet’s recent Anatomy of a Fall, The Goldman Case is an electrifying dramatization of a trial that gripped and divided France.

In a galvanizing performance, Arieh Worthalter plays Pierre Goldman, a leftist radical who committed several robberies, and now stands accused of murdering two pharmacists. And yet as the trial proceeds, it becomes fairly evident, at least to us, that the man is not guilty. Interrupting his lawyers, as well as the bigoted government prosecutor, he uses his trial as a platform to lash out and raise questions against racism, antisemitism, and injustice.

Directed with vérité realism and pinpoint historical precision, The Goldman Case is a focused, distilled dramatization that’s both subdued and electrifying, communicating so much about the complexity of Jewish identity in recent European history.