Although the plot of “No One Will Know” takes place almost exclusively in a small café near Paris within a few hours of early morning, the prologue of the chamber-game thriller drama is already using in the 18th century. Giacomo Casanova (Giovanni Funiati) and Ranieri de 'Calzabigi (Patrice Tepasso) are presented in Versailles at the farm of Louis XV (Arnaud de Montlivault) to present their plan to renovate the disaster French state finances: a lottery organized by the Kaiserhof is to help! Because a hungry man may prefer the bread to the money – but for the chance to get rich, he would also give up his last loaf.
Three centuries later it is the pensioner Monsieur Kantz (Claude Aufaure), who, in the ritualized early morning visit, found in a café by Nico (Xianzeng Pan) named after the sun king, which he won unimaginable 294 million euros during the last draw. However, happiness only lasts briefly: the petty criminal comar (Némo Schiffman) snaps a service weapon for the police officers Livio (Pio Marmaï) and Reda (Sofiane Zermani) – and the subsequent scrambled loosens to the freshly baked lottery winner fatally. But should you let all of the money go to his heirs-or is there maybe not a way to divide the insane amount among all the random café guests?
With Comar (center: Némo Schiffman) the culprit quickly agreed. But if the lottery gain is not to be lost, the cops involved would have to let it run and even participate in the sum.
The plot of “No One Will Know” actually provides the perfect template for a talkative ethics lecture, in which the parties involved extensively discuss the pros and cons of the lottery sac. But puff cake! Surprisingly, greed is limited – after all, almost 30 million are more than enough for everyone, and even the dead woman and daughter of the dead are supposed to get their generous part. Instead of a clumsy moral piece, “The Magnetic” director Vincent Maël Cardona, who, together with Olivier Demnangel, is also responsible for the script, unfolds a complex network of perspectives from the start: Again and again the film jumps back for a few minutes to show the already known events from the perspective of another figure.
It is usually less about classic twists that tear down supposed collateral, but rather about small, additional nuances. But there are also moments that-at least for a short time-bring you up: the white shooter is suddenly a black man-and just when you ask yourself whether we may get several variants of the same starting situation, the modified event is revealed as a potential alibi consultation of the cop duo: If the shooter is black in her fabricated statement, it will be easier to accept. Elsewhere, the camera even pulls back so far that the whole café setting-comparable to the most spectacular scene from Nuri Bilge Ceylan's masterpiece “on dry grasses”-is exposed as a merged film set in a studio building.
The operator Nico (Xianzeng Pan) imagined the morning very differently in his café.
294 million euros are a sum that nobody can really imagine anyway – and so we don't even find out what the different characters would actually do with all the money. Instead, after the other bloody incidents, it is almost hardly about the money, but rather about getting out of the matter somehow without landing directly in the jail. This always delivers black-humorous tips, often seasoned with a beastly socially critical undertone, but is not particularly elegantly composed in a pure thriller sense: neither the figure arsenal nor the screenwriters are particularly clever when it comes to thinking about possible plans, as you could still think of the lottery gain.
Instead, director Vincent Maël Cardona seems to be much more located at a meta level of gradually to dissolve the boundaries between the actual events, the devoted alternative scenarios and in general to film reality. This is quite fascinating and also looks damn good. But since the characters are hardly developed further from a certain point, it will eventually appear a little strained when another coincidence, another setback or another suddenly suddenly appearing figure ensures that the scenario continues to round up a round.
Conclusion: The plot for a group of café guests who fall into the hands of a lottery ticket worth 294 million euros initially sounds like a nasty thriller or a black comedy. But although “No One Will Know” serves both genres, Vincent Maël Cardona seems to strive for a more experimental approach as a whole if he lets his story break through not only the centuries but also the cinematic reality.
We saw “No One Will Know” at the Fantasy Film Festival 2025.