E-Mail This Article to a Friend LA FLEUR DU MAL

Set in Bordeaux, this cynical, bourgeois-bashing pseudo-mystery from Claude Chabrol wastes a talented cast. Attractive step-siblings François Vasseur (Benoît Magimel) and Michèle Charpin-Vasseur (Mélanie Doutey) rediscover each other when he returns from Chicago and she from Paris; they head off to the family’s seaside cottage and embark on an idyllic, if glossy, romance. Meanwhile, Anne Charpin-Vasseur (Nathalie Baye) is running for mayor, with the lukewarm support of her unenthusiastic husband, Gérard Vasseur (Bernard Lecoq), and in the face of poison-pen broadsides hinting at the family’s dark history. Can François and Michèle escape the family curse? Is Anne getting it on with her hunky assistant, Mathieu (Thomas Chabrol, Claude’s son)? What will happen when Gérard finds Michèle alone in the house? In the end, the secret is revealed by Aunt Line (Suzanne Flon): it involves betrayal, murder, and collaboration during World War II (this is a French film, after all). Evil, in La fleur du mal, is in the eye of the director. In French with English subtitles. (104m) At the Kendall Square.