It makes nothing but complete sense that Love Crime, the final film to be completed by Alain Corneau before the French filmmaker succumbed to cancer a year ago (nearly to the day), has caught the attention of Brian de Palma, who plans to remake the film in the coming year. A brisk, messy, and wholly laughable take on cutthroat business politics, Corneau's film is reminiscent of a great deal of de Palma's work, though it lacks his (pardon) cojones and his sense of acidic humor. There's a hesitancy to go for the jugular here, and it keeps Corneau's final film, nowhere near as interesting as his underappreciated 2003 gem, Fear and Trembling, from touching the savage truths found in the clash of corporate culture and an executive workforce made up more and more by women. This hesitancy and the film's wonky tone are evident from the film's first sequence, in which head-honcho Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas) shifts a home-meeting with her doting assistant, Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier), into a spot of gal-pal time which begets the sort of shoulder and backrub that high school boys always think will get them laid. It cools off, however, as Isabelle is obviously not down with it, and Christine quickly retaliates by fondling boy-toy Philippe's (Patrick Mille) genitals with her foot. This adequately sets up the battle lines, though Isabelle is still all too happy to stay up late working on a deal with some American manufacturer and allow Christine to take the credit, in order to secure Christine's departure to New York.
Problems, as they tend to do, rear their heads when Philippe and Isabelle embark on a short-lived affair, following an in-the-moment fling during a business trip to Cairo. This seeming betrayal refreshingly doesn't seem to matter all that much to Christine and it certainly doesn't matter as much as Isabelle going rogue and getting all the credit for a project with their Washington D.C. clients, subsequently botching Christine's big move to Manhattan. Corneau, thankfully, pushes through all of this relatively quickly and leaves a far greater amount of time to soak in Christine's multi-level humiliation of Isabelle, not to mention the preposterous revenge plot that Isabelle puts into action following her mentor's torturous games.
Isabelle's vengeance takes up nearly half of the film and it is by some margin the most delirious and unbelievable facet of this sexually-tinged drama. This is a film that a Chabrol or a Breillat would have done wonders with but, strangely, it becomes something of a disposable, if oddly likable entertainment in the hands of Corneau. The filmmaker's sense of pacing, not to mention his relationship with editor Thierry Derocles, certainly plays a part in this bizarre enjoyment but the real reason is Sagnier and Thomas, whose relishing of these diabolical roles is infectious, even invigorating. Big marks go to the great Thomas but though this is a role that puts Sagnier's limitations as a performer in bold, her presence powers the film even when the script, written by Corneau and Nathalie Carter, fails her.
I would rather not give away the surprises of the second half of Corneau's film, but needless to say, there are some gaps in logic. These gaps, of course, would be fine if Corneau had fully embraced the lunacy of his film and his script but, sad to say, his nature as a filmmaker wasn't in the same range as masters like de Palma or Paul Verhoeven. So, Love Crime ultimately rides the fence between psycho-sexual delirium and soggy, Grisham-esque corporate intrigue. It's certainly not an outright debacle but it's certainly disappointing. Corneau was capable of so much more, and you know he won't be able to prove that again.
aka Crime d'Amour
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