5/10
Rare for a mysterious thriller set in the high stakes
business realm, Love Crime (Crime d’Amour)
is dominated by women with the men relegated to paltry supporting roles. Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas) is on the fast track to the elite tier of her
international business firm as chief of their Paris office. She is confident, sexy, knows how to work the
room, and has complete faith in her subordinate Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier). Not only
is Christine a business mentor to Isabelle, she also assumes the role of life
coach, close confidant, and in a few moments, possible temptress.
Isabelle is also on the fast track but is severely
overshadowed by the extroverted Christine.
She has original ideas which win the firm big clients but Christine will
frequently claim those ideas as her own to help her case for promotion. Christine does not necessarily view this as
the immoral thing to do. She is the boss
and ideas flow to the top. Plus, any
success merited to Christine will naturally help Isabelle’s career; however,
Isabelle must never forget who is truly in charge.
While attempting to prove herself outside of Christine’s
shadow, Isabelle sparks a feud between the two careerists with drastic
consequences. So begins an intricate
chess match of hints, allegations, innuendo, and dramatic backroom conversations. Christine attempts to squash her former protégé
back into obscurity and Isabelle maneuvers to step into her own spotlight
subverting her malicious boss.
If you have a weakness for ‘who dunnits’ or intricate true
crime methodologies, then Love Crime is your guilty pleasure come true. However, if you have only passing interest in
the above mentioned genre, then you can take or leave this film. The script is sharp, the acting is a pleasure
to watch, and the intense, hushed French conversations will keep you immersed,
but there is not much more to it.
Isabelle’s relationship with Christine reminded me a bit of
the earlier Ludivine Sagnier role in Swimming
Pool, but instead of Charlotte Rampling, this time you get a much more
assertive Kristin Scott Thomas. There
are also direct reminders of The
Business of Strangers with Stockard Channing and Julia Stiles.
Sagnier redeems herself in this audience member’s eye from
her disastrous work in The Devil’s
Double. While that was a good film,
her character and acting drastically impacted its plausibility. Plausibility is also a factor here in Love
Crime. There are overreactions you would
never see in reality but the intricate follow through in the malevolent details
make up for a good portion of disbelief.
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