RogerEbert highlights two Cannes competition films

RogerEbert.com used a single May 19 Cannes dispatch to put two Competition titles side by side: Arthur Harari’s “The Unknown” and Jeanne Herry’s “Another Day.” Ben Kenigsberg’s piece framed both films around internationally known actresses and treated them as distinct answers to the same festival question — what happens when a star vehicle is built around instability rather than glamour. The article was published during the 79th Cannes Film Festival, which began May 12 and runs through May 24, according to the festival and RogerEbert.com. ### Which two Cannes films did RogerEbert.com single out? Arthur Harari’s “The Unknown” and Jeanne Herry’s “Another Day” were the two Competition entries in Kenigsberg’s May 19 dispatch for RogerEbert.com. The festival’s official 2026 selection lists “L’Inconnue (The Unknown)” by Harari and “Garance” — released internationally as “Another Day” — by Herry in Competition. (rogerebert.com) Jeanne Herry is making her Cannes Competition debut as a director this year, RogerEbert.com said, while Harari is in Competition for the first time as a director after earlier Cannes work connected to “Onoda,” “Sibyl” and “Anatomy of a Fall.” RogerEbert.com noted that Herry’s film is titled “Garance” in France but “Another Day” in other territories. (rogerebert.com) ### What did RogerEbert.com say about “The Unknown”? Ben Kenigsberg described “The Unknown” as a “moody dive into fragmented identity” and said Harari’s film begins with David Zimmerman, played by Niels Schneider, spotting a woman at a party and later waking up in her body. Festival de Cannes gives the same basic setup in its official synopsis, saying David follows a woman he notices in a crowd and wakes up hours later in “the body of the unknown woman.” (rogerebert.com) Léa Seydoux plays Eva in the film, and Kenigsberg wrote that Seydoux is “especially good at suggesting a state of continual shock” as the story moves from comic body-swap mechanics toward more abstract questions. He also cited Andrea Poggio’s piano score and said the film declines to fully explain the switch, instead favoring existential inquiry over a more conventional genre payoff. (rogerebert.com) ### What is “Another Day” about? Festival de Cannes said Herry’s “Garance (Another Day)” follows an alcoholic actress over eight years and stars Adèle Exarchopoulos in the title role. The festival’s background piece on the film said Herry based the project on interviews with a young alcoholic describing her recovery and drew in part on her own experience as an actor. (rogerebert.com) RogerEbert.com positioned “Another Day” as the second actress-centered Competition title in the pairing. The festival’s write-up said Sara Giraudeau co-stars opposite Exarchopoulos and that the relationship between the two women becomes the emotional center of the film. ### Why did these two films fit together in one Cannes dispatch? RogerEbert.com explicitly grouped the films as “two from Cannes Competition, featuring world-famous actresses.” In practice, the pairing let the site contrast two different performance showcases: Seydoux in a body-dislocation mystery and Exarchopoulos in a recovery drama spanning years. (festival-cannes.com) (rogerebert.com) The Cannes lineup supports that framing. The festival’s Competition list places both films among this year’s main contenders alongside new work from Pedro Almodóvar, Asghar Farhadi, Cristian Mungiu and others. ### What Cannes material accompanied the reviews? Festival de Cannes published a press-conference page for “The Unknown” on May 19 naming Arthur Harari, Léa Seydoux, Niels Schneider, Lucas Harari and other members of the team. (rogerebert.com) RogerEbert.com’s broader Cannes coverage also includes a running table of contents for reviews, dispatches and video reports from the festival. (festival-cannes.com) The next fixed date in this story is May 24, when the 2026 Cannes Film Festival is scheduled to conclude. RogerEbert.com’s Cannes index and the festival’s Competition pages remain the clearest places to track any follow-up coverage on “The Unknown” and “Another Day.” (rogerebert.com) (festival-cannes.com)