L’ombre du Doute is made in the tradition of the melodrama and its maker appeals emphatically to the viewer’s emotions. She aims to express an outspoken opinion on incest in this fiction film.It focuses on a typical bourgeois French family. It soon becomes apparent that the father is clandestinely abusingAlexandrine (Sandrine Blancke), his twelve-year-old daughter. The mother refuses to believe her daughter for a long time; the only people willing to listen to Alexandrine and understand her painful and unbearable situation are outside the family. The film acquires the character of a psychological thriller when the father manages to make the outside world believe that everything is based on misunderstandings and lies by Alexandrine.The girl is more or less forced to live under the same roof as her father. Under great pressure she states that she has lied and that her father has not touched her. Will the horrible game start afresh? It is certain that Alexandrine’s youth has been ruined by the crisis in the family and that the family itself only really exists to mollify the outside world.Is the father a monstrous criminal or the victim of excessively diligent social workers who think they see incest everywhere? The film-makers opinion is clear: if there is a shadow of a doubt, the child should be believed.
