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François Ozon seems a talented, perverse filmmaker without much passion. In this familiar story with a not-so-original gimmick, it doesn’t take long to figure out why the marriage of Marion (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) and Gilles (Stéphane Freiss) goes bust. In the first of the five reverse-chronology episodes, the two settle in divorce court, then head to a hotel room where Gilles more or less rapes the sulking Marion. Do we need four more examples to get to the bottom of this? But rearward we go, to a penultimate squabble, the birth of their child, the wedding, and their first swim, all commonplace instances of human frailty and meanness without redeeming pathos. Whereas Harold Pinter engaged suspense in Betrayal and Gaspar Noé pushed viewers into the void with Irréversible, Ozon seems content to show off slick technique and glib metaphors as his characters back themselves into a corner.
BY PETER KEOUGH
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