In Paris, Michal has received a home detention sentence for instigating a workplace riot. In the aftermath, his wife Elise has left him and remarried. Clouds of acid rain now make their way across Europe. Elise’s car is damaged in traffic and she begs Michal’s help in rescuing their teenage daughter Selma from where she has been placed in boarding school. Michal breaks parole to do so just as the acid rain hits, burning those it touches and even scouring the bodywork of the van. The three of them set out on a journey to safety at Elise’s husband Brice’s place. However, fleeing crowds and the deadly dangers created by the acid rain are causing chaos everywhere.
Acid was the second feature film for French director Just Philippot. I had been quite impressed with Philippot’s first film The Swarm (2020) about a woman (Suliane Brahim, who also appears here as Guillaume Canet’s ill girlfriend) who raises a swarm of deadly locusts. Philippot had previously made Acid as an 18-minute film as part of the SF anthology 4 Fantastic Histories (2018).
Acid rain is an existing climate issue. It comes about as a result of the mixing of certain chemicals in the air altering the ph content in the rain that falls. The principal causes of acid rain are from polluters such as factories, vehicle exhausts and most substantially from electrical power plants. This has notable effect in terms of damaging plantlife and increasing ocean acidification. There have been almost no films devoted to acid rain before – the only other ones I can find where it is a significant theme are the Cuban films Red Cockroaches (2003) and Blue Rain (2021).
That said, to make acid rain work as a viable concept, the film’s script has to amplify the potency of the rain by several hundred times. Acid rain in reality consists mainly of sulfuric and nitric acids, typically forming at concentrations well below 0.01%. For an acid to burn as severely as we see it doing in the film, it would need to be at a concentration of around 30% (which is industrial-grade strength) and to dissolve metals it would need to be up around a 50% concentration. Acid rain is just other chemicals diluted in water so this raises the question of where all the sulphur and nitrogen-based compounds would be coming from to make the rain so potently acidic. There is also the scene where people are burned after falling into a river – the problem here is that the acid rain would be falling into a body of water that is at normal ph value, which would only have the effect of massively diluting it, rendering it harmless. If you can buy the scientific improbabilities, Acid still makes for an absorbing film.
Clouds of acid rain gather(l to r) Guillaume Canet, daughter Patience Munchenbach and ex-wife Laetitia Dosch join the survivors
Acid starts out from ordinary beginnings – Guillaume Canet visiting his lady love Suliane Brahim, Laetitia Dosch caught in traffic, the daughter Patience Munchenbach facing bullies at equestrian boarding school and the parental fallout caused when she stands up to them. In no time at all, Just Philpott throws us into the midst of a Catastrophe as the rains begin to fall – images of horses fleeing with smoke coming off their bodies; the ground fuming in places where drops hit; a man with scoured skin trying to force his way into their SUV; vehicles with the paintwork burned and scarred.
Acid works as a solid survival work. Just Philippot makes it a harsh survival story and drives the drama along with a compelling urgency. The film is construed in terms of plunging the characters from one dramatic situation to the next. There is a particularly harsh and difficult to watch scene as Laetitia Dosch gets separated and caught up among crowds fleeing across a collapsing bridge then thrown into the water and the efforts to save her. It all works rather well.
