Lost Illusions

Paris, during the Restoration. Rejected by his mistress who is under pressure from an influential Marquise, Lucien de Rubempré (Benjamin Voisin), a provincial poet who has never been published, licks his wounds in a restaurant that welcomes destitute artists. There he meets Étienne Lousteau (Vincent Lacoste), a cynical journalist who takes him under his wing.

Thanks to his caustic pen, Lucien soon becomes a formidable culture critic, which gives him the opportunity to seduce Coralie, a rising star of the boulevard theater. With his success going to his head, Lucien undertakes to have her appear in a play by Racine on a more respectable stage. And in exchange for a favorable review of the novel by a protégé of an influential publisher, Lucien’s first collection of poems is finally published. But by compromising with the royalist press, Lucien finds himself doomed to failure.

Based on Honoré de Balzac's classic novel.