Presented in competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, “DOSSIER 137” marks the return of Franco-German director Dominik Moll, two years after the critical success of “The Night of the 12th.” This new film, which carries the tradition of procedurals, tackling the issue of police violence in France, is set against the backdrop of the 2018 Yellow Vests protests.

Stéphanie Bertrand (played by Léa Drucker), an investigator for the General Inspectorate of the National Police, is tasked with investigating a serious injury caused to a young protester by rubber bullet round during a demonstration in Paris. The investigation takes a personal turn when Bertrand discovers that the victim is from her hometown, Saint-Dizier. This emotional link strengthens her determination to uncover the truth, despite institutional obstacles and pressure from her peers.

Stéphanie Bertrand is neither an untouchable heroine nor a zealous avenger. She is a meticulous, ordinary, believable professional, and that is precisely where the strength of her character lies. Dominik Moll tells the story of justice from the margins: not in courtrooms or high-profile trials, but in the murky hallways of internal investigation offices, where silence and compromise are negotiated daily.

Stéphanie works in an institution where she is expected to “look the other way.” Her actions are not driven by revolt or activism; she acts because she refuses to give in to indifference. Her pursuit of truth is not spectacular — it is slow, deliberate, and cautious.

What is moving in “Dossier 137” is how the film portrays justice on a human scale, and doesn’t disconnect professional duty from intimate reality. Stéphanie is a separated mother who shares custody of her daughter with an ex-husband still embedded in the police hierarchy. This private dimension is essential; it grounds her character in a contemporary reality shared by many women who juggle the demands of parenthood with high-responsibility roles.

One reads a quiet but accepted weariness in her silences, in the weary gestures after work, in the text messages exchanged with family. Stéphanie never complains — she moves forward, alone, in a world that asks much of her and gives very little back.

Paris, where the story is set, is portrayed as a place of emotional isolation: crowded metros, impersonal offices, apartments lit by the blue glow of a laptop on too late. Stéphanie has no friends around her, no community — only work, the investigation, her son, and her kitten. This version of Paris reflects a particular middle-class, stable, educated, yet emotionally unavailable. Moll doesn’t try to make the city a character; instead, he renders it as an opaque, almost hostile backdrop where function gradually erodes identity.

At its core, “Dossier 137” offers a female figure of justice that is anything but abstract: no symbols, no grand speeches—just a woman grounded in reality, trying not to betray what she believes is right. She doesn’t always succeed. She doubts, hesitates, and withdraws—but she keeps going. This portrayal of unwavering integrity is arguably one of the most powerful cinematic portraits I’ve seen during the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.

With “DOSSIER 137,” Dominik Moll delivers a committed thriller that questions the very foundation of the rule of law. His film stands out as a genuine work of French cinema, one that confronts societal ills head-on.