Released in theaters Wednesday, May 27, 2026, Agnès Jaoui’s latest film sets #MeToo backstage at an opera. It arrives after its out-of-competition screening at Cannes. With L’Objet du délit, the filmmaker returns to her choral mechanics. Early critical reception already shows how combustible this territory remains.
A Film By Agnès Jaoui In 2026 Under Tension
The official Cannes Festival page provides the factual framework. L’Objet du délit is a 133-minute French dramedy directed by Agnès Jaoui. The screenplay is credited to Emmanuel Salinger, Laurent Jaoui, Noé Debré and Florence Seyvos. StudioCanal is distributing it. The film was screened out of competition at the 79th edition of the Festival, before its French release on May 27.
The public synopsis centers on a simple but explosive situation. Backstage during a production of The Marriage of Figaro, an allegation of sexual assault shakes the company. Each person must take a position, conflicts of opinion and generation resurface, and the production risks falling apart. The subject is fictional; this article therefore focuses on the film, its construction and its reception, not on a real case.
In the cast, Cannes lists Agnès Jaoui as Hannah and Daniel Auteuil as Igor. Eye Haïdara, Claire Chust, Oussama Kheddam, Tiphaine Daviot, Vincenzo Amato, Patrick Mille and Emmanuel Salinger round out the ensemble. Casting matters because the device relies on a plurality of viewpoints. Jaoui does not film an isolated heroine, but a collective unable to talk about an accusation without fracturing.
Cannes Emphasizes The Collective, Critics Are Divided
In an article published May 22, the Cannes Festival presents L’Objet du délit as the story of a company in crisis. This collective seems speechless. The text stresses the choice not to turn the accusation into a trial. It becomes instead a catalyst: positions clash, generations face off, and laughter remains close to discomfort.
Reception, meanwhile, is already going in several directions. In its May 27 RSS feed, Libération headlines a “woke muddle.” The outlet summarizes the film as an attempt to interrogate #MeToo without moving the needle much. Première, by contrast, publishes a favorable review. It praises a biting comedy and a film that accepts not smoothing the edges. Télérama, in a partly paywalled piece, calls it a sensitive and funny comedy despite clumsinesses, centered on the clash between “boomers” and “wokes.”
This contrast is useful for anyone seeking an opinion on L’Objet du délit. The film arrives less as a consensual object than as a mirror of the critical vocabulary used around #MeToo. Everything depends on the point of support: nuance, clumsiness, or the impossibility of “moving” the debate. The same choral device can therefore appear daring, cautious, or confused.
Why The Marriage Of Figaro Changes The Debate
Choosing The Marriage of Figaro is not decorative. Mozart’s opera already traverses class relations, male domination and power games. It offers Jaoui an old mirror for a contemporary debate. The film’s argument is not simply that #MeToo divides. It places that division in an artistic form made of roles, rehearsals, hierarchies and bodies being looked at.
This transposition also allows Jaoui to remain in her territory. We find the conversation that derails and the group where everyone thinks they’re speaking plainly. The comedy arises from a social disagreement deeper than it seems. Since The Taste of Others, her cinema observes milieus, tastes, timidity and symbolic violences. Here, the operatic stage adds a layer: the company must perform together, even though they no longer share the same moral grammar.
Jaoui After Bacri, Continuity And Shift
The artistic question therefore goes beyond the mere news of the release. Première recalls that this film marks the first screenplay realized by Agnès Jaoui without Jean‑Pierre Bacri, who died in 2021. The information should not overshadow the film, but it sheds light on its anticipation. Jaoui returns to cinema eight years after Place publique. She resumes a choral architecture associated with a shared oeuvre, then applies it to a debate very present in French society.
This shift is noticeable in the role given to women. The Cannes page and accessible reviews describe a conflict where several feminisms collide. One generation demands an immediate rupture. Another worries about the presumption of innocence. Other characters refuse to be assigned to a stable camp. Prudence remains necessary. Without promotional quotes out of context, one can say the film seeks its material in the very discomfort of this discussion.
This ambition also explains the risk. A choral film about #MeToo can become a space for nuance. It can also give the impression of distributing blame symmetrically, where some viewers expect a clearer line. Libération’s critique, as it appears in the consulted feed, seems to point to this limit. Première sees in it, on the contrary, proof of a refusal of soothing rhetoric.
A Cultural Release More Than A Simple Movie Listing
For the public, the practical information remains clear. L’Objet du délit has been in theaters since May 27, 2026. It runs 2h13 and notably brings together Agnès Jaoui, Daniel Auteuil and Eye Haïdara. AlloCiné classifies it as a dramedy and reprises the Cannes synopsis. The release is thus anchored through Cannes, StudioCanal and the first critical pieces.
But the film is not reducible to its release date. The cultural stake lies in what it circulates. There is the word “woke,” the memories of the Jaoui‑Bacri filmography and the place of live performance in representing consent. It also touches the difficulty of telling #MeToo without reducing its protagonists to spokespersons. It is precisely here that Agnès Jaoui’s latest film becomes an object of debate. It does not merely resolve a cinematic question; it tests the possibility of a common conversation.