Some people walk onto a stage and, almost by force of personality, have five hundred strangers crying. Not from a shared tragedy — because someone told them it must be so. "Guru" opens on a moment like that; it made me twitch in my seat. That discomfort is part of the film's pull.
Guru (2026)
Original title: Gourou
Country: France, Belgium
Genre: thriller
Duration: 2 hr 6 min
Directors: Yann Gozlan
Screenplay: Jean-Baptiste Delafon, Yann Gozlan, Pierre Niney
Starring: Pierre Niney, Marion Barbeau, Antoine Bajon, Christophe Montenez, Jonathan Turnbull, and others
Premiere: April 16, 2026 (Russia)
Rating: 18+ / R
Audience rating: IMDb — 6.4 / Letterboxd — 2.7
About the Film
Mathieu Vasseur — Matt to his followers (Pierre Niney) — is presented as France’s top personal-development figure (hum.). His events are not lectures with dry slides; they’re engineered encounters where people shout, sob, confess. The rituals feel deliberately theatrical, almost liturgical. As scrutiny from journalists and officials creeps in, Matt doubles down. The arc slides from motivational theater into something more coercive, less benign.
Niney Is a Guarantee of Quality
Pierre Niney and Yann Gozlan are on their third collaboration since "Black Box." There’s a through-line: Niney used to play a seeker; here he is the one selling certainty. He doesn’t merely act charismatic — he embodies the persuasive mechanism that makes audiences hand over money and, worse, personal agency. It’s unsettling to watch because the performance is so convincingly ordinary; at times you forget there’s a performance at all. Still, I found myself wondering whether the film ever lets us sit with that unease long enough.
Painful Familiarity
The film’s subject has migrated far beyond Europe (hum.). Think of domestic examples: Elena Blinovskaya’s "desire marathons," Ayaz Shabutdinov’s promises to turn anyone into a billionaire. Different packaging, same method: find an ache, offer control, collect fees. Gozlan stages the seminars with a kind of crowd physics — the camera feels the swell, the collapse of individual resolve into a shared mood. That choreography is eerie precisely because it’s recognizable.
When a Thriller Keeps You Tense but Doesn't Push Hard Enough
As a thriller, "Guru" does its job: momentum, a rising sense of threat, a handful of sharp set pieces. Yet the film also pulls back when it could have dug deeper into consequences. Pacing rarely flags, but the emotional stakes sometimes stop at surface level; you care, yes, but the final twists feel more like clever mechanics than moral reckoning. It’s effective, but not relentless — which might be a relief for some viewers and a missed opportunity for others.