The protagonist was met with an uneventful night and from there she spirals down the rabbit hole. Eventually, she had the closure she needed to move forward. It's moving in the sense the main character was "alive" in her role and portrayed it well. The other casts, aced their role well. Though so, the story itself is pretty bland and straightforward.

Vivante is a French film, about a young, 19 year-old girl, who, on her way back from singing lessons, get's raped by a group of men. She doesn't tell anyone anything about what happened to her, because she thinks she can solve this problem by herself. She get's addicted to drink, drugs and sex with unknown men. She even tries to commit suicide. Only after 8 months she dares to talk to her father and brother about it, and that's when she dares to live again. This movie ain't "the best you've ever seen", it ain't "the first movie about rape". But it shore gives you a moment to think "wtf?". After you've seen this movie, you start to think about the impact of such a thing, and that's, I think, the impact of this movie, it gives you a good look, what's it really like. You hear about rape more often, but thanks to films like this one, you keep remembering that it's not normal. It's not only the story that's great. Also the performance of the 19 year old Vahina Giocante is very good.

Seemingly happy 19 year old philosophy student, Claire, is abducted when returning to her dorm and gang raped by four strangers. She cannot tell anyone about it, drops out of school, starts to have impersonal sex with near strangers, and withdraws from her brother and friends. After Marie, (Fanny Cottençon) an older woman acquaintance, picks her up at one of her parking lot f***s, and offers her refuge in her country house, Claire starts to turn her life around enough to get the courage to try suicide. When she is rescued, Claire's brother (Samuel Jouy) gets her out of the hospital, takes her for a child like frolic on the beach and returns to Marie's country house. Interesting study in the deadening of emotion from this trauma and then the slow recovery of self, a bit like "Blue" by Krzysztof Kieslowski. The recovery of Clair's sexual self is portrayed through her hesitant relationship with a photographer colleague (Pierre Cassignard). The hopeful ending comes after Claire starts to reconcile with her father (François Berléand) who withdrew emotionally when she was a child and her mother died. He is the first person she tells of the gang rape, 8 months after it happened. Strong first effort by this director, Sandrine Ray, who focuses on a woman living with the secret of violent abuse. Also effective, if somewhat opaque performance by Vahina Giocante as Claire. All in all this is a thought provoking & sobering film without the gut wrenching impact of "Blue" or "The War Zone" by Tim Roth.