The Heiresses

Isabelle Huppert stars in this twisty 1930s-set tale as a young seamstress who agrees to be a surrogate for an affluent socialite.

Casting an elegiac eye over her homeland’s rocky history, Márta Mészáros’s penetrating period piece unfolds in a decadent, politically charged 1936 Budapest. Her frequent collaborator Lili Monori (Nine Months) plays Szilvia, a wealthy socialite whose inability to conceive a child stands in the way of her inheriting immense wealth. Enter Huppert’s Irène, a modest Jewish shopgirl whom Szilvia befriends in the hope that she’ll serve as a surrogate. With the terms of the exchange laid out, will this be a simple transaction, or will other factors complicate the arrangement?

One of Mészáros’s darkest but most visually ravishing creations, The Heiresses finds the trailblazing Hungarian auteur exploring a toxic relationship tangled up in issues of class, motherhood, bodily autonomy and the abuse of power. Both Monori and a brilliant young Huppert give unostentatiously devastating performances, while the film itself – set against the rise of fascism in the 1930s – offers subtle yet piercing insights into the braided intricacies of privilege, prejudice and self-interested unscrupulousness.

“A coolly harrowing dissection of class and the cost of motherhood, and a haunting vision of lives on a collision course with history.” – Film at Lincoln Center