Déchaînées (2009)★ 6.7/10

CH,FR · 95 min · November 2, 2009

• Drama

Directed by: Raymond Vouillamoz

Written by: Stéphane Mitchell

19-year-old Lucy, a TV intern at a Swiss TV network, discovers a lookalike in archival footage about the local women's-lib movement in the 1970s. Her family's resistance to the matter convinces Lucy that a secret lurks behind this mysterious double, and she sets out to find the woman. She slowly finds out that her doppelganger, Genevieve, was an infamous feminist and abortion activist and could be her real grandmother. Why did Genevieve disappear? Why was she scratched from her family's history? Why did she abandon Lucy's mother? Lucy's family stays mum. Her problems pile up when she discovers she's pregnant by her ex-boyfriend. Torn between her mother's advice of an immediate abortion and her ex-boyfriend's proposal, Lucy cannot choose. She finds refuge in the idea that finding Genevieve, who abandoned her own child and was fighting for abortion rights, holds the key to her past, therefore her future as a woman. As her family implodes, Lucy and her abrasive teen sister discover a family plot that leads her to revisit the history of women's liberation in Switzerland through archival footage and encounters with participants in the 1970s movement. Her final confrontation with Genevieve lets out the heavy secret that encumbered her family for three generations of women and forces Lucy to position herself as a feminist.