Bannière Horizontale JauneThe Stopover’s compelling setup – a group of soldiers returning from a tour of Afghanistan staying in a five-star Cypriot hotel for “decompression” – makes for a scintillating investigation into memory, guilt, and what it means to be a woman in an aggressively masculine environment.

The simmering tensions among the group are masterfully brought to a boil in perhaps one of the finest on-screen depictions of the latter since The Silence of the Lambs. Its two female leads bristle with self-defensive hostility towards the men, yet demonstrate a brittle but unbreakable bond of sisterhood between themselves – which they need to survive.

From start to finish The Stopover delivers emotively acted scenes of inter-gender tension and barely-suppressed rage. The parallels it draws between war and workplace relationships are brazen and powerful.

RATING: 4/5

INFORMATION

CAST: Ariane Labed, Soko, Ginger Romàn

DIRECTORS: Delphine Coulin & Muriel Coulin

WRITERS: Delphine Coulin & Muriel Coulin

SYNOPSIS: A group of French soldiers returning from Afghanistan must stay in a five-star Cypriot hotel for three days for decompression, but tensions arise when an incident from the war is deliberated upon.

The Stopover was screened in Un Certain Regard at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.