The Billionaire The Butler and the Boyfriend (L’Affaire Bettencourt: Scandale chez la femme la plus riche du monde) is a French documentary series exploring a national scandal between a billionaire and her daughter. It is directed by Baptiste Etchegaray & Maxime Bonnet and produced by Yann Le Bourbouach, James Gay-Rees, Paul Martin, and Nicolas Duval Adassovsky. There are three episodes in the series with a runtime of about 45-55 minutes.
The documentary features acquaintances of Liliane Bettencourt and people involved in the media scandal including Patrice de Maistre, Corinne Audouin, Edwy Plenel, Tom Sancton, Georges Kiejman, Claude Delay, Raphaelle Bacque, Arielle Dombasle, Jean Michel Ribes, Antoine Gillaut, Philippe Courroye, Marie France Etchegoin and Fabrice Arfi.
The Billionaire The Butler and the Boyfriend Review
Liliane Bettencourt’s life was like any other rich person, we have heard before. Living under the shadows of a dominant/business-savvy father for most of her early life and then becoming a trophy wife of another man with leader-like qualities. She presented the best image of herself and performed what was expected of her. However, it devoid her of genuine happiness or even true love for that matter. Despite having all the money in the world, she couldn’t fill up the void in her lonely life.
That’s when comes along François-Marie Banier, a well-known photographer with the skills to win anyone’s heart, despite his rude work behaviour. In 1987, Banier was commissioned to photograph Liliane for the magazine Egoiste and since then they became quite close friends. Here the documentary title seems quite misleading because Banier is essentially queer and didn’t form any romantic relationship with the L’Oreal heiress. If anything, he became the entertainer in her married life, since he made her smile and kept the depression away, as her politician husband would say.
However, he certainly charged a hefty price for his friendship. It was reported that he received a number of gifts from Liliane from 1997 to 2007, worth 917 million euros. It was in the form of famous artworks, trips around the world, insurance, jewellery and other monetary assets. This transactional relationship didn’t sit well with the only daughter of Liliane, when he went out of his way to ask her to even adopt him as a son, after her husband’s death.
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Not being able to sit back and see her mother accepting all of Banier’s demands, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers sued him in 2007, accusing him of abus de faiblesse (or the exploitation of a physical or psychological weakness for personal gain). She claimed that her elderly mother was being taken advantage of by Banier. What started as a quest to remove a scrounger friend, became a nationwide scandal that exposed the Bettencourt family and its financial malpractices.
In his attempt to maintain a cordial relationship with Liliane, Banier tried to control her life, including firing staff that he thought would spy for the daughter. This move urged the house butler, Pascal Bannefoy, to start recording conversations between the Heiress and her guests. He would hide a recorder in the serving trolley/table and everything would be recorded without any suspicion. These recordings became a crucial part of the whole case as they also shed light on how Liliane was evading tax by not declaring her various accounts in Switzerland or funding politicians for personal favours, including then president – Nicolas Sarkozy.
The butler brought all the recordings to Françoise Bettencourt Meyers to prove that Banier was truly taking advantage. Although she had the choice of not going public with these confidential recordings, she went ahead with it to get rid of the whole entourage, freeloading off her mother. Shifting the attention from a feud between a daughter and a mother to the financial fraud by the richest family in the world and the people associated with it.
It was definitely a strategic move by the daughter to secure her inheritance, in case her mother changed her mind and added Banier to her will. Although it’s obvious that he was taking advantage of the bored and old lady with billions to spare, I don’t understand the narrative that he was stealing from her, when she gave it willingly and is more than capable of affording it all. Even in an interview, Liliane calls it a generosity that she did out of her own happiness and if it makes both the parties happy, then it shouldn’t be a problem or a crime.
However, this case also reflects the strained relationship between the Bettencourt family. It’s no secret that Liliane’s father was a Nazi sympathizer and openly funded & supported violent French fascist pro-Nazi political group. Her husband was also part of the same, thus one can expect that she shared similar beliefs. It became quite evident when she asked in one of the recordings if her grandson looked Jewish or not. Evidently, she wasn’t a fan of how her daughter conducted herself and when she married Jean-Pierre Meyers, a Jewish guy, they became more distant.
Years of piled-up contemptuous feelings could have found an outlet by going after Banier, who somewhat threatened her positioning in the family. After that, it’s the age-old tale of rich kids going to any extent to secure the bag, even if it meant framing their parents as senile. If anything, her case gave the French public a glimpse of what the rich do behind their luxurious abodes to maintain their image and find ways to save extra money. Also, it made Françoise Bettencourt Meyers the world’s richest woman at the moment.
Stylistically, the creators tried a different approach by showing the interviewee’s names separately as title cards, but it was quite confusing at times. There wasn’t a clear distinction between who was talking on the tapes, was it Banier, Maistre or someone else, nor did the visuals specified. Also, they talk about the whole case without a linear timeline and don’t provide proper information about when was the audio recording taken. Other than that, it’s a decent documentary showcasing tidbits of rich family’s drama.
Rating: 2.5/5
The Billionaire The Butler and the Boyfriend is available for streaming on Netflix.
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