Une si longue nuit (2022)

Sami, 19, a wise student, steals his father's taxi to leave for the evening. As he is on his way, a young woman, Gloria, bursts into the car. They go to her house, and everything is linked. Alcohol. Drugs. Sex. Sami collapses. When he regains consciousness, Gloria is next to him, dead. Sami is arrested. It is Jeff, a cop on the verge of retirement, who inherits the business. When Sami has to get a lawyer, he appoints Isabelle, a specialist in petty crimes. Is Sami guilty? Innocent? Between the cop and the lawyer, old intimate enemies, the confrontation begins.

Sami discovers prison, a child in a world of adults, a lamb in a world of wolves. At the same time, Jeff continues his investigation and learns that Sami had been lying for months and never had his exams. He also discovers his taste for violent porn. Her parents are devastated. Do they really know their son? Isabelle discovers that the victim had argued with a young man in a bar before getting into Sami's taxi.

The descent into hell continues for Sami. The trail of the argument in the bar is cut short. However, it highlights the complex personality of Gloria, a heavy drug user, to the great astonishment of her parents. Isabelle, joined by Leïla, a young idealistic lawyer, continues to move heaven and earth to defend her client. Unfortunately, Sami, between despair and fear, gets closer to Anis, the boss, and agrees to bring cocaine balls into the visiting room.

Isabelle and Leïla continue to look for other avenues to sow doubt in the minds of the jurors. But Isabelle is discouraged. Jeff might be right. Sami is lost. Despite Leïla's protests, she is on the verge of giving up. Especially since Sami, tattooed, shaved, muscular, has become a real jailbird and no longer has anything of the wise student he was.

The trial at the Assizes begins. But Sami sank. Drugged, tattooed, shaved head, he looks anything but innocent. And if Isabelle and Leïla manage to win the support of the jurors on the first day, Sami's appearance on the second day quickly turns into a disaster. All seems lost.

Two days before the end of the trial, Jeff is suddenly seized with scruples: what if Isabelle was right? What if Sami was innocent after all? To get to the bottom of it, he decides to dig into Gloria's past. And what he finds is beyond comprehension.