Garance opens in French theaters on September 23, three years after Herry's All Your Faces.
Adèle Exarchopoulos plays the title character, a young working actress who is not a star. Sara Giraudeau plays Pauline, an important figure in the intimate conversation through which Garance reflects on her life.
The film moves across eight years of jobs, apartments, parties, relationships, friendships, anxiety and change.
Alcohol does not arrive as one spectacular collapse
That distinction shapes the entire film. Garance is initially capable, funny, social and professionally active.
Drinking operates as comfort and fuel, something that fits easily enough into the rhythm of parties and a young actor's unstable working life.
The danger comes partly from how normal that arrangement can appear while the dependency is growing underneath it.
As the years pass, Garance drinks more and the possibility of serious physical harm becomes harder to separate from the rest of her daily life.
Eight years prevent the addiction from becoming a simple rise-and-fall arc
Herry's structure allows different parts of Garance's life to evolve at different speeds.
She changes homes and professional circumstances, forms new relationships and undergoes what the film describes as an intimate, sexual and emotional revolution.
Moments of genuine happiness can therefore exist alongside worsening dependency. Progress in one part of her life does not automatically repair another.
That complexity is essential to the character. Garance is not reduced to a sequence of drinking-related disasters.
Exarchopoulos is working with Herry again
The actress previously appeared in Herry's 2023 film All Your Faces.
Here she carries the central timeline, playing Garance through different periods of adulthood and different stages of addiction.
Sara Giraudeau has the other principal role. The wider ensemble includes Sarajeanne Drillaud, Anne Suarez, Mathilde Roehrich, Brigitte Sy, Hélène Alexandridis, Jehnny Beth and Raya Martigny.
The subject is public health, but the movie stays with one person
Herry has said the character was informed by conversations with a young woman who described her own experience of alcoholism.
That gives the film a clear connection to a broader public-health issue, but Garance is not structured like an educational case study.
Its focus remains personal: acting, family, friendship, sexuality, work and the way dependency slowly alters the meaning of all those things.
The approach matters because it allows Garance to remain a character rather than becoming a diagnosis.
Cannes introduced the film before its theatrical release
Garance premiered in the official competition at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
Antoine Cormier served as cinematographer, Laurence Briaud edited the film and Pascal Sangla composed the score. Alain Attal and Hugo Sélignac produced through Trésor Films and Chi-Fou-Mi Productions.
Studiocanal is distributing the film in France.
Two hours are used to make eight years visible
The Cannes Film Festival and the Académie des César list the running time at 120 minutes.
The length is less about building a large plot than about accumulation. Habits and compromises that initially appear small become more significant because the audience has watched them persist over years.
Garance opens in French theaters on September 23, 2026.
