An Anti-Procedural That Knows Exactly Why

Read Time:5 Minute, 24 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Conrad & Crab – Idiotic Gems (Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines)
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Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Year Released: 2026
Runtime: 1h 26m
Director(s): Claude Schmitz
Writer(s): Claude Schmitz
Cast: Rodolphe Burger, Francis Soetens, Anne Suarez, Samia Lemmiz
Where to Watch: shown at the 2026 International Film Festival Rotterdam

RAVING REVIEW: What happens when a crime story stops caring whether the crime is solved, or even whether it matters? CONRAD & CRAB – IDIOTIC GEMS opens with the promise of an investigation but dismantles it piece by piece, replacing that push with observation and paying off with patience. Claude Schmitz has no interest in building suspense in the traditional sense; instead, he’s far more invested in what happens when people drift through lives they’re no longer especially good at performing. This is an intentionally loud movie, and it works because it knows that it is.

Set in the market town of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, the film follows two judicial police detectives, reassigned from Perpignan (a southern French city near the Mediterranean coast and the border with Spain), on what should be a minor assignment. Alain Crab and Francis Conrad arrive already weighed down by professional stagnation; neither appears particularly sharp, motivated, or emotionally prepared for the task at hand. That sense of low-grade unease becomes the film’s real subject. The supposed theft that anchors the story barely registers, functioning instead as a loose framework that allows Schmitz to explore the town’s tensions and nonsense.

This is decidedly not a procedural, and Schmitz makes that clear early. Scenes wander away from the investigation without apology; conversations end without resolution; encounters feel incidental rather than engineered. Over time, these fragments form a subtle mosaic, highlighting class divides, emotional fatigue, and the strange intimacy of small communities temporarily disrupted by outsiders.

Rodolphe Burger’s performance as Alain Crab is particularly impressive, not because it demands attention but because it avoids it. There’s a fatigued gentleness to his presence, an air of someone who’s long since stopped believing his job defines him. Burger plays Alain as a man out of sync with his surroundings, including his own past. His interactions with an ex-lover who now occupies a position of authority over him are handled with remarkable restraint; there’s no explosive confrontation, only the discomfort of roles reversed and feelings unresolved.

Francis Soetens brings a slightly different energy to Francis Conrad, leaning into awkwardness and misplaced confidence. His character’s entanglement with a local woman becomes one of the film’s emotional focal points, not because it develops into a sweeping romance, but because it exposes his longing to be seen as something other than a functionary. Schmitz allows this relationship to unfold without pressure, trusting the audience to find meaning in glances, pauses, and offhand remarks.

Tonally, the humor is dry, downbeat, and deliberately unshowy. Jokes often land sideways or not at all, depending on viewer expectations. Schmitz seems uninterested in making the audience laugh so much as inviting them to notice. When comedy emerges, it does so organically, born from miscommunication, discomfort, or absurdity. The title’s suggestion of “idiotic gems” feels apt; moments of beauty and insight appear where you least expect them.

Where the film may test patience is in its refusal to provide conventional narrative satisfaction. Viewers waiting for the investigation to merge into something meaningful may find themselves frustrated by the film’s indifference. The criminal network hinted at remains largely abstract; consequences feel muted. This isn’t a failure of execution so much as a declaration of priorities. CONRAD & CRAB – IDIOTIC GEMS is less concerned with solving a mystery than with sitting inside uncertainty. I struggled with this until I sat back and thought about what the film was as a whole and what it was offering the audience.

I’m able to write this looking back on the experience, but it’s a unique way to approach a film, and I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing! That choice won’t work for everyone. There are stretches where the film risks mistaking drift for depth, and not every digression carries equal weight. Some scenes feel deliberately unresolved to the point of inactivity, as if Schmitz is daring the audience to disengage. Yet even these moments contribute to the film’s overall form; they reinforce its portrait of people stuck between action and resignation.

What ultimately distinguishes the film is its confidence in understatement. Schmitz trusts silence, awkwardness, and emotional half-measures. He allows his characters to remain incomplete, his storylines to fray, and his ideas to hover rather than land. That restraint gives the film an unexpected emotional resonance, especially in its quieter parts.

CONRAD & CRAB – IDIOTIC GEMS is a film that asks for patience and rewards attentiveness rather than anticipation. In rejecting the mechanics of its genre, it finds a gentler, more human truth about people performing roles they no longer feel fit them. It’s modest, occasionally frustrating, but assured; a small, observant film that knows exactly what it’s not trying to be.

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