“Rembrandt”: the film about nuclear power that makes people cringe

Pierre Schoeller's new feature film, Rembrandt, released this Wednesday, September 24, has sparked a heated debate. By tackling the nuclear issue in France, the director is sending shockwaves through a particularly sensitive sector, combining fictional revelations with potentially credible abuses.

When doubt creeps into the power station

In this intimate political thriller, Claire, a brilliant physicist played by Camille Cottin, is thrown into a tailspin after an unexpected upheaval in front of three Rembrandt paintings at the National Gallery in London. This aesthetic shock triggers a radical rethinking of her commitment to the nuclear industry, which she shares with her husband (Romain Duris). Little by little, she begins to wonder: would French power plants be ready to face extreme weather events, which are now more frequent?

Pierre Schoeller imagines an energy company called EnF, a thinly veiled reference to EDF, in which scientific certainties waver. The film rigorously documents the threat posed by "black swans"—rare but potentially devastating events—and their potential impact on nuclear facilities. Claire, isolated by the skepticism of her family and superiors, attempts to make her voice heard in a deaf world.

A fiction under high political tension

From its first screenings, Rembrandt has provoked strong reactions. Figures in the nuclear sector are concerned about the film's effect on public opinion, even as new power plant projects are due to be confirmed soon. Myrto Tripathi, president of the association Les Voix du nucléaire (Nuclear Voices), strongly denounced a film that, according to her, "specifically targets the industry" and "distorts the reality of the French program" (statements reported by Politico). She plans to distribute a decryption in front of cinemas to "correct misinformation."

The same tone is echoed by Valérie Faudon of the pro-nuclear think tank Sfen, who regrets that fiction can influence collective representations more than facts: "Most knowledge today comes from films," she recalls, still in Politico.

The presence in the credits of logos from NGOs like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth has rekindled suspicions of an activist work. While these organizations claim, via Politico, that they were not involved in funding or writing the screenplay, they acknowledge supporting the film through post-screening discussions.

Beneath its personal drama, Rembrandt touches a raw nerve: that of an industrial sector still shrouded in silence and tension. By making scientific doubt a narrative driver, Pierre Schoeller creates a work that, even when criticized, succeeds in putting nuclear power back at the heart of public debate.