Pierre Ninet, a Cesar Award winner and one of France's most popular actors, plays a personal development coach in the new film “Guru,” whose wild rise, fueled by the enthusiasm of the crowd, ultimately leads to a painful fall.
On April 9, “Guru” will be released in Ukrainian cinemas – a film with a telling title dedicated to the dangerous influence of various “life teachers”, whose popularity in the modern world is growing day by day.
Director and co-writer Yann Gozlan emphasizes that it was fundamentally important for him to show a person in the film who does not see himself as a predator. “At first, he sincerely believes that he can help people,” says Gozlan about the main character of his film, charismatic life coach Mathieu Vasser, whom his fascinated followers call simply Matt. Matt's popularity grows, and at one point he becomes the most popular personal development coach in France. But along with fame, Matt's paranoia and his desire for total control grow…
From the Count of Monte Cristo to the “infogypsy”
The main role in the film was played by French actor Pierre Niney, the youngest ever winner of the Cesar Award (for his role as couturier Yves Saint Laurent in the 2014 biopic of the same name), as well as the star of the recent acclaimed film adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' novel The Count of Monte Cristo.
Interestingly, it was Ninet who came up with the idea for the film about the dangerous leader. “Initially, Pierre wanted to make a film focused on the figure of a great orator,” says Yann Gozlan. And Pierre Ninet adds: “This is a project that has been brewing in my head for a long time. The initial idea was to explore the ability to electrify a crowd with words, to put people into a trance and, intentionally or unintentionally, to take control of them.”
Later, the film crew developed Nina's idea, directing the topic specifically towards coaches, promoted on the Internet and capable of gathering full halls.
While working on the script, Gozlan and screenwriter Jean-Baptiste Delafon themselves attended many different personal development seminars to ensure the character was realistic. This research impressed Gozlan. “We found these large gatherings of three hundred people in large rooms where there were not even windows: either to avoid unnecessary eyes or to avoid distractions. I didn't even know that such things existed in France,” he says.
The film explores the mechanisms of people's collective attachment to a charismatic leader who bribes them with promises of a better life. “Evil rarely appears with an open face – it often takes on the appearance of good. And what I find extremely interesting about Pierre as an actor is that he is not one-dimensional and is able to show both his light and dark sides at the same time, which turned out to be extremely valuable for this film,” the director emphasizes.
And also in the film about a charismatic coach whose influence grows to the limit of what is permitted, in addition to Pierre Niney, French actors Marion Barbeau, Anthony Bajon, Christophe Montaigne and American Galt McKellany, star of the popular series about the first FBI profilers “Mind Hunters”, played.
“Trilogy” about Mathieu Wasser
For Pierre Ninet and Yann Gozlan, “Guru” is the third collaboration after the successful films “The Perfect Man” (2015) and “The Black Box” (2021). An interesting nuance is that Ninet's characters in all three films have the same name – Mathieu Vasser. Why is that?
“Both 'The Perfect Man', 'The Black Box' and 'Guru' are thrillers where we follow the main character throughout the story and simply cannot help but identify with him,” explains Jan Gozlan. “Also, all three characters have in common that they fall into a kind of spiral, a vicious circle – and ultimately find themselves on the edge of the abyss because of this. And all three films also question the very concept of truth.”
“The Perfect Man” is about an impostor who steals someone else's manuscript and is forced to hide it. The protagonist of “The Black Box” – an audio expert trying to find out the circumstances of a plane crash – desperately seeks the truth and becomes something of a whistleblower, showing how destructive the truth can be. “And the film 'Guru' asks, 'What kind of truth are we talking about?'” the director explains. “Coaching is the main focus of the film, but the film also raises the topic of populism. Like some politicians, Matt uses words, but the truth is secondary to him. That's what some heads of state do today, like Donald Trump. I would even say that as the film progresses, Coach Matt becomes a kind of Trumpian figure. Matt is not in any way connected to Trump's political agenda, but he has the same attitude towards rhetoric. He wants to create a sense of shock and disbelief in order to motivate people and inspire them to no longer be passive victims of circumstances.”
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Jan Gozlan emphasizes that the theme of his film is very, very relevant right now. “Each of us is now being pressured from all sides, calling on us to shine in all areas of life and tirelessly demonstrate it.” But do we really need this? And what could be the price of such a “successful success”?
The answers to these questions will be in the cinema starting April 9.