Legendary French New Wave director Claude Chabrol teams with Isabelle Huppert to bring his sophisticated brand of Hitchcockian suspense to the tenebrous world of corrupt CEOs in this elegantly restrained thriller about a tenacious judge obsessed with unraveling a vast conspiracy of corporate fraud.

Jeanne Charmant-Killman (Isabelle Huppert, as remarkable as always) is a ruthless workaholic doggedly untangling a web of mysterious power brokers who illegitimately profit from their high-powered positions as government executives brokering deals with developing countries. Unfazed by daily batches of death threats and attempts on her life, she skillfully dodges every obstacle stuck in her path by the shadowy, supremely well-connected figures bent on preventing her from pulling the rug out from beneath them. But as adroit as she is at her job, Charmant-Killman is less proficient at balancing her home life with her career. Her distant husband becomes increasingly frustrated with the way she is consumed by her work, and when he attempts to confront her, she coldly moves out of their apartment in order to minimize the disruption to her single-minded pursuit of justice. The understated domestic subplot provides an inspired counterpoint to the gripping primary storyline, and classical cinematic devices such as frequent dissolves and fades-to-black evoke the golden age of Hollywood thrillers. With Comedy of Power, Chabrol reaffirms his status as France's principal heir to the legacy of Alfred Hitchcock.