Wild At Heart
The French movie “Love Crime” by director Alain Corneau (who recently died after the premiere of this film) is a work place thriller in which Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas) is on the fast track for a promotion to the companies New York office and is willing to take the credit from the younger, and perhaps smarter yet naïve Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier).
When we first meet the two women at Christine’s house, it seems as Isabelle is just an underling who is being told to do work and like all great French films, there is a little sexual play as Christine is exerting her power/charms to get Isabelle to take her place on a business trip to Cairo. The trip goes well but the relationship starts to turn for the two woman as Isabelle hears Christine take credit for her ideas to land that account.
While she is not overly ambitious at this point, a fellow co-worker, perhaps with a grudge or just trying to manipulate the field, spurs Isabelle on to stand up for herself and take credit for her own work. Still reluctant to do so, a fateful (aren’t they always) party where Christine plays a mean spirited joke on Isabelle involving a man both are seeing becomes the turning point for Isabelle to finally try to upstage Christine. But will her desire for work place revenge also lead to a more permanent solution as a Christine gets murdered and the blame is placed on Isabelle.
I like the fact this movie takes a journey starting off as a drama/love triangle and transforms into a business drama and then ends as a murder mystery. It manages to pull this change up beautifully which a lot of films tend to come to a screeching halt when they switch gears. This movie remains remarkably afloat.
The main concern I have is that Christine is the more compelling character and with her gone, the film loses a bit of its bite. This does not mean Sagnier is not a good actress but Thomas is so good, her removal leaves a big hole that almost threatens to swallow up the whole movie. Luckily, we become invested enough that it doesn’t get that far and it has a nice ending which shows the competition of the business world. The business world is often compared to “sharks in the water” and Christine is the big shark yet even small sharks, seemingly benign, can cause problems.
This is definitely for fans of crime thrillers and I would recommend for Thomas alone. I wish the second act was stronger as Sagnier plays the weakness of Isabelle well, she doesn’t always make us truly believe in the stronger version of her character. Seeing Thomas’ character switch from mentor to bitch is truly fun however and there is enough here to make me wish we could see another film by the late director.
The film opens Friday, October 28 at the Main Art Theatre.
My grade is a B