Film review: Passion

Newsroom 02/09/2013 | 09:45

Starting off like something you might stumble upon on an obscure European cable station while late-night channel-hopping, and ending up in the realm of Gothic horror by way of a Columbo episode, Passion’s gripping denouement belies its inert beginnings. The ending recalls another of Brian de Palma’s works – classic 1973 horror flick Carrie – and the director’s trademark trash is in full flourish in this lesbian-lite boardroom melodrama.

The plot, such as it is, sees three female advertising executives vying to get the better of each other. Christine (Rachel McAdams) is the ball-breaking, credit-stealing boss, Isabelle (Noomi Rapace) her initially shy but fast-learning protégée and Dani (Karoline Herfurth) Isabelle’s devoted assistant. I would like to think it’s an accident and not crude sexist symbolism that one of the women is blond, one a brunette and the other a redhead, but it’s de Palma we’re talking about so it’s probably “meaningful”. There’s also some male eye candy in the form of Christine’s dodgy bloke Dirk (Paul Anderson).

As in many female rivalry films – think Showgirls, Black Swan – the silliness is ramped up and there’s the usual same-sex snogging. (How come men never kiss in rivalry movies? I can’t imagine Michael Mann making Pacino and de Niro lock lips in Heat.) Anyway, everybody cops off with everybody at some point (it’s de Palma so that doesn’t count as a spoiler), and when that’s not in progress scenes often seem stilted and contrived.

However, just when passion has nearly faded, things pick up. Some German keystone cops (the movie is set in a grey, Bourne-styleBerlin) pop up to investigate a crime, and the plot gets all twisty, with Columbo-style trickery and various bluffs and double bluffs. Slowly, you find yourself getting sucked in, and the ending packs a punch far above what I had expected.

On top of that, it’s stylishly put together – looking rather like Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In, which itself attracted de Palma comparisons – with solid performances by the three leads. Not classic de Palma, but certainly a superior slice of late-night guilty-pleasure Eurotrash.

Director: Brian de Palma

Starring: Rachel McAdams, Noomi Rapace, Karoline Herfurth, Paul Anderson

On at: Cinema City Cotroceni, Grand Cinema Digiplex, Hollywood Multiplex, N.C.R.R.

debbie.stowe@business-review.ro

 

 

 

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