Film Review: Femme Fatale (2002)

Cynics would say that the genre of erotic thriller lost much of its purpose with the development of high speed Internet, which allowed its target audience to enjoy more explicit and less complicated forms of screen erotica. In any case, erotic thrillers in 21st Century are less popular than they used to be in last decades of 20th Century. One of the earlier examples of this trend might be given by poor box office results of Femme Fatale, 2002 film written and directed by Brian De Palma.

The plot begins at 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Laura Ash (played by Rebecca Romijn) is an attractive woman who became professional thief and became involved with two dangerous criminals – Black Tie (played by Eriq Ebouaney) and Racine (played by Edouard Montote). They plan to steal precious diamonds during the premiere of East/West. Diamonds are part of the dress that barely covers the body of supermodel Veronica (played by Rie Rasmussen) who attends the premiere. Laura is tasked with seducing Veronica, take her toilet and switch her dress during lovemaking. Things don’t go exactly as planned, but Laura manages to get away with diamonds. Pursued both by police and former partners, Laura is helped by incredible set of happy coincidences, including French couple that mistook her for their daughter. Laura obtains false passport and flies to USA and during the flight she meets wealthy business tycoon Bruce Hewitt Watts (played by Peter Coyote). Seven years later Laura is Watts’ wife, but her idyllic life is interrupted when Watts gets appointed to US ambassadorship in France. Laura follows her husband, desperately trying to stay out of public eye. But the ruthless Spanish paparazzo Nicola Bardo (played by Antonio Banderas) photographs her face and brings all kinds of trouble, including the attention of Laura’s former partners. Bardo, however, later tries to redeem himself for helping her make plan how to get out of her predicament.

Brian De Palma made this film in time when his career has been far from its zenith. It may be argued that Femme Fatale represented return to his roots. He pays a lot of homage to Hitchcock and his thrillers. This is best seen in series of elaborate, superbly staged and directed scenes that are modelled on some of the best moments in the works of Master of Suspense, while some scenes pay obvious homage to the classics of film noir. While doing so, De Palma often goes over the top and almost makes his film self-parodical with the series of absurd and bizarre twists in the plot that is supposed to connect those scenes and instead tests viewer’s intelligence. However, all this play appears to make some sort of sense after the major plot twist near the end.

De Palma has less fortune with casting. Antonio Banderas, obviously brought to the project on the account of his star appeal, appears lost in poorly written character. Mostly French actors and actresses that make rest of the cast are much better. American fashion model Rebecca Romijn (credited as Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) shows that she is much better suited to the Hitchcockian archetype of icy blonde and in couple of scenes delivers the goods to all those interested in this thriller being erotic, which includes both nudity and some of the more explicit sex scenes. Femme Fatale also features slightly more explicit violence than in most of Hollywood thrillers of its times and, as such, offers refreshment to all those accustomed to PG-13 paradigm. Femme Fatale despite that fared very poorly at the box office and received rather mixed critics. Yet, for the minority of viewers this film was a proof that De Palma still can still deliver good genre cinema and through the years Femme Fatale even gained something of a minor cult status.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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