Le Vertige
Rating: 3.5/5
By: Nathaniel Simpson
SCREENED AT FANTASTIC FEST 2026
Quentin Dupieux's quirky animated comedy, Le Vertige, that just screened at Fantastic Fest, really surprised me. I had no idea what I was going into when I first watched this film, but it immediately charmed me and had me giggling at the absurdity of it from beginning to end. This film is incredibly odd, surreal, and hilarious all at the same time, and it desperately left me wanting for there to be so much more to this story. I think the film works well with this story and this set of characters, but I feel like the movie is lacking as there could have been so much more to work with here. I would love to see Dupieux perhaps expand on this story for a longer film because I do think he has a lot of potential here with this one.
The film follows Jackie (Alain Chabat) and his friend Bruno (Jonathan Cohen) as the former shares his theory that the world they are living in is not real and is all a simulation. This is then proven by a few hilarious coincidences and unexplained anomalies they experience, when then forces Bruno to start investigating this phenomenon for himself. While all of this is going on, the entire film is shot in a low-poly retro 3D style animation, similar to the older video games of the early 2000's, which I think just perfectly adds to the the style and tone of this film.
I absolutely adore the way that Dupieux tells the story here. This feels like a more modern, comedic take on the themes and story the Wachowskis crafted for The Matrix. At the same time, Dupieux adds in elements and comedic gags that I wouldn't have even thought of to help explain this phenomenon in the constraints of the film. Consider the scene where Bruno's wife Fabienne (Anaïs Demoustier) gives birth to their first child in the living room; it is so unexpected and bizarre that it works so well. I definitely wasn't expecting it at all, and I think that's what adds this sort of bizarre beauty to his film. Dupieux subverts the audience's expectations by presenting to them this sort of bizarre tale that I think every audience member can find themselves in.
Like I mentioned earlier, I think Dupieux has done the hard part of crafting this story and themes that he wanted to tell, and I wish he had gone a little bit farther with it. This movie's runtime is only an hour and seven minutes, and only follows a handful of scenes throughout its runtime. While I do think the movie runs at a nice pace and does deliver on the thematic themes it needed to, I wish Dupieux challenged himself a little bit more and crafted a film that hit the 90-minute mark. I think there is so much more he could have said here that would have made this movie just that much stronger. I hope this movie is greeted with success at this festival so it would allow Dupieux to craft a longer, more complex tale.
However, with that being said, I think the animation and stylistic choice for this picture is fantastic. The animation style adds so much to this movie as a whole, and it is hilarious with some of the gags and jokes in this movie. One sequence that stands out to me the most is when Bruno starts to believe the theory and decides to trash a subway and flip off a random bystander. I truly think if this movie had used live-action or any other style of animation, it wouldn't have worked as well as it does here.
Like I said, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect going into Le Vertige, but this movie actually charmed me and made me want a lot more from this story and these characters. Dupieux ends the film on a very interesting note, one that I think works really well for this time period and the people that exist at this current moment in time. Dupieux is now on my radar as a filmmaker, and I can't wait to see what he is able to craft next. Hopefully, we'll get a follow-up to this film here that expands the story just a bit more.
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