Re-Creation (2025) Tribeca 2025

In 1996 French filmmaker Sophie Toscan Du Plantier was murdered near  her home in West Cork. While journalist Ian Bailey was suspected by the police he was never charged in Ireland. He was tried in absentia in France and found guilty. RE-CREATION is speculation on what might have happened in the jury room if Irish authorities had taken it to trial.

There have been numerous documentaries investigating the case including a Netflix limited series that Bailey sued  over. I've seen several of them and I am intrigued by the case. I still am not certain as to what happened. This is another attempt to make sense of the murder.

While some of the promotional material suggests that this is an examination of the facts of the case that will allow the audience to decide, this is actually a polemic that is arguing that Bailey may not have been the killer. I don't have a problem with that but there are issues with some aspects of the film.

The first problem is that director/star Jim Sheridan is a friend or aquaintence of Ian Bailey. (I'm still not 100% certain how friendly they were/are). While that's fine unto itself, presenting this film as a wholly neutral film (we are supposed to make up our own minds) doesn't work. The problem wouldn't exist if Sheridan wasn't in the film, but the fact  is he acting as the foreman and is steering the discussion and he does so in a manner that isn't natural. This is more a dramatic lecture not a dramatic film.

The other problem is that a great deal of what we see and hear are things that would never go before the jury. The conceit of this being an actual jury discussion is never really followed as the jury discus evidence that would not have been presented to them (such as statements of one of the witnesses who changed her testimony). I wouldn't have cared but as a real trial film this film collapses. (Yes I know what goes in the US is not what would happen in Ireland, but some of the evidence was listed as questionable by some of the documentaries)

While I like the film, its an intriguing concept, I really wish that Sheridan had simply made a documentary. He could have said what he wanted with out wrapping it in material that forces the facts and the fiction to grate against each other (why do you have Colm Meaney silently play Bailey when Bailey appears in actual photos? And why use Vicky Krieps  when all she does is just ask questions?)

My resenvations aside the film is worth a look, especially if you like true crime tales.