Les anarchistes
The Anarchists
Set in 1899 Paris, a young police sergeant is chosen to infiltrate a group of anarchists, an opportunity he sees to rise through the ranks. However, he soon finds himself becoming attached to the group.
LivewireAdmin reviewedSeptember 8, 2025
Les Anarchistes sets up a juicy premise: a young cop (Tahar Rahim) infiltrates a circle of fin-de-siècle radicals and gets tangled up in loyalty, ideology, and desire. On paper, it’s undercover thriller meets period romance. On screen, it’s more of a soft murmur than a rallying cry—handsomely mounted, intimately shot, but strangely timid about its own politics and suspense.
Exarchopoulos is the draw and, unsurprisingly, the pulse. She does that low-key, watchful thing so well—communicating whole paragraphs with a sideways glance or a half-smile. Whenever she’s in frame, the movie feels oxygenated. Rahim is solid as the conflicted infiltrator, but their chemistry is more slow simmer than spark, which fits the film’s mood but doesn’t help the stakes.
Craft-wise, the soot-and-gaslight texture works: cramped apartments, smoky cafés, and close, handheld framing that keep you inside the characters’ heads. Yet the film keeps skimming the surface of the group’s ideology and internal dynamics. We hear about danger more than we feel it. Plot turns arrive like gentle nudges, and the third act never finds the bite you’re waiting for.
The result is a watchable, moody period piece that hints at bigger ideas—class tension, the seduction of belonging, the cost of betrayal—without pushing hard enough on any of them. If you pressed play for Adèle, you’ll get a handful of lovely, lived-in moments; if you came for the sting of an undercover thriller or a bracing political drama, it’s likely to leave you lukewarm.