The Blonde with Bare Breasts 2010

Julien Rivera, Nicolas Duvauchelle, 25, and Louis Rivera, Steve Le Roi, 14, are brothers whose upbringing has left them tight-knit but worn by fear and rough circumstances. Their father has long beaten Julien, a cycle Julien repeatedly steels himself to shield Louis from, even as the man slides toward a terminal illness. With the weight of their fragile family life pressing on them, the brothers set their sights on owning their father’s river transport narrowboat, hoping to claim some measure of autonomy and security in a world that has given them little.

A gang offers money for stealing the Édouard Manet painting La blonde aux seins nus from a museum, luring the brothers into a dangerous plan. Louis seizes the painting while the young guard Rosalie Durieux, Vahina Giocante, is distracted, and she gives chase. Louis manages to lock her aboard the riverboat, a move that begins a fragile, uneasy rhythm on the vessel. Over time, the brothers release her to move around the boat’s corridors and cabins. Rosalie, who is sometimes treated with roughness, grows to crave the adventure and the thrill that life on the water offers.

The police quickly become suspicious, tying Rosalie to the theft. Yet when the ship is searched, she hides both herself and the painting, quietly turning the tide in her favor and in the brothers’ favor as well. The initial chill of mistrust between Rosalie and the brothers slowly warms into a complicated, precarious alliance.

Intimacy blooms between Julien and Rosalie, adding another layer of tension to an already volatile situation. Louis, hearing their closeness, grows jealous and responds with a troubling ruse: he fashions a life-size dummy of himself and uses it to pretend he has hanged himself, a desperate ploy born from fear, rage, and a need to control the narrative around their crime. The tension reaches a boiling point as Julien contemplates violence toward Rosalie because she knows too much about the theft.

In a bid to protect Rosalie, Louis urges her to escape, even as she remains connected to the brothers and the boat. Rosalie eventually returns the painting to her father, who arranges its restoration, a quiet act of restitution amid the chaos. The gang, seeking revenge, assaults Julien, underscoring the brutality that shadows their plans. Rosalie reunites with the brothers on the ship, their fragile alliance surviving the storms of mistrust and danger.

When their father dies, Louis emerges as the likely heir to the boat, signaling a grim but clear shift in the brothers’ fortunes. He appears to be the only son who truly carries their father’s legacy, and with the boat in his hands, the final balance of power among the siblings—and the crew that pursues them—tilts in his favor. The river becomes both a home and a battleground, where family bonds, loyalty, fear, and ambition collide in a tense, hard-edged drama.