Set in 1930s Paris, three women played by (left to right) Rebecca Marder, Isabelle Huppert and Nadia Tereszkiewicz become hilariously entangled in a courtroom drama.
Set in 1930s Paris, three women played by (left to right) Rebecca Marder, Isabelle Huppert and Nadia Tereszkiewicz become hilariously entangled in a courtroom drama.
The Crime Is Mine (PG, 102 mins). Streaming on Arovision. In French, with subtitles in English.
Directed by Francois Ozon.
First off, a recommendation, with no disclosure of interest needed, for Wellington-based streaming service Arovision: https://ondemand.arovideo.co.nz/.
Arovision offers a big range of 2800 well-selected movies from wider sources than Netflix, including new releases, genre films, docos, classic movies, a DIY film festival builder, most of last year’s NZIFF films and more.
No subscription, just rent as you go for $4.99 - $7.99.
The Crime Is Mine is one of their new releases, based on a 1934 French stage play of the same name, previously made into the films True Confession (1937) and Cross My Heart (1946), the humour in all three being limited to sparring between husband and wife and mockery of the legal system.
All kinds of attitudes and behaviours are ripe for comedic exploitation.
Since Ancient Greek times, comedy all over the world has thrived on ridicule, and the French are outstandingly good at spoof and farce. In an episode of the French series Call My Agent, there’s a passing reference, a humorous one, to the 2014 incident captured by paparazzi when President Francois Hollande rode pillion, helmet askew, to visit his mistress.
Marginally immoral behaviour is, in France at least, not necessarily an impediment to social acceptance. C’est la vie, apparently.
Being accused of committing an actual crime can even open the door to respectability in some more or less believable circumstances, as in The Crime Is Mine. The period is still the 1930s, but the husband and wife are swapped for a pair of young women, Madeline (Nadia Tereszkiewicz), who wants to be an actress, and Pauline (Rebecca Marder), a recently qualified lawyer.
They share a Parisian garret. The rent is overdue.
Madeline goes to visit a predatory film producer in his luxurious home and arrives back at the garret only to hear on the news that the producer has been murdered, at the very time she was visiting him.
Cornered, Madeline confesses and turns to Pauline for help.
A courtroom drama ensues, in which Madeline’s carefully rehearsed role turns her into a star. At last, the pair can pay the back rent and move to an apartment.
But alas… another star, a gorgeously haughty remnant of the silent screen, Odette Chaumette (Isabelle Huppert, doing a perfect Sarah Bernhardt parody), just as desperate for stage work, also confesses to the murder, claiming the crime for herself.
Who’s to be believed? Who deserves the limelight, the big pay packet?
Stuffy judge Gustave Rabusset (Fabrice Luchini) threatens to stop the three women in their tracks, but feminine wiles win the day with him, and also with autocratic industrialist Monsieur Bonnard (Andre Dusollier), the father of Madeline’s hapless but charming boyfriend Andre (Edouard Sulpice).
