The opening ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival is generally, not to put too fine a point on it, a snooze. A highly polished actor or entertainer steps out to host. This year—the festival’s 75th edition—it was Virginie Efira, the Belgian-French actress who played a salacious, miracle-performing nun in Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta. Watching the simulcast proceedings with the rest of the press from the festival’s Debussy theater—the sister theater to the the bigger, fancier venue, the Grand Lumiere, where the festival’s major film premieres take place, and where an A- to Z-list of actors and luminaries in evening dress had gathered for the night’s festivities—I didn’t even recognize her as Verhoeven’s naughty nun. Her columnar sequined YSL dress was elegant for sure. But was so stiff and composed it looked as if all the personality had been airbrushed out of her.
