‘Wild Diamond’ Review: Cannes Character Study Is Empathetic and Unforgiving

Cannes 2024: First-time director Agathe Riedinger presents social media and reality TV stardom as a pie-in-the-sky way to escape a life of poverty

Wild Diamond
Festival de Cannes

Liane Pougy, the young woman at the heart of Agathe Riedinger’s “Wild Diamond,” has big dreams and a loose plan to achieve them that relies on praying novenas to St. Joseph and courting the interest of reality TV producers. If that sounds like an odd pair of allies to be seeking, Liane’s dream — to become a social media influencer, or a reality star, or a spokesperson or someone significant and loved — is nebulous and difficult enough that an underprivileged teen from a coastal town in the South of France will need all the help she can get. 

Liane has carved her personal ambitions out of the detritus of Planet Kardashian: She worked a waitress job until she saved enough money for breast implants, but now she mostly shoplifts, sells what she can get on the street, posts on social media and records videos for her 10,000 or so fans, who seem to view her either as a goddess to be worshiped or a slut to be shamed.

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