Femme Fatale Review
by Jerry Saravia (faust668 AT aol DOT com)November 18th, 2002
FEMME FATALE (2002)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
November 8th, 2002
RATING: Three stars
Just when you thought sex was not sleazy anymore comes Brian De Palma back in fine form with "Femme Fatale," a highly erotic, stylish film that is really a noir comedy at heart. It is "Double Indemnity" crossed with "Vertigo" and De Palma's own "Obsession." It is loud, crude, high-pitched, self-parodic and a huge mess. It is also entertaining and absorbing, a truly dazzling cinematic treat.
Rebecca Romjin-Stamos stars as Laure Ash, a seductress that would give most seductresses in this decade a run for their money. This woman means business. At the start of the film, she poses as a photographer at the Cannes Film Festival to divert attention from a diamond heist. Laure has a tryst with a French model in the bathroom that is among the most erotic sex scenes ever filmed. This includes the removal of gold braces embedded with jewels which Laure cleverly removes and drops to the floor underneath the bathroom door so they can be whisked away by an accomplice. The robbery, the tryst, the scheduled film at a theatre and a cat toying with some snakelike microphone are all scored to the beat of Ravel's "Bolero." This sequence alone is so damn good and suspenseful that you hope this is the opening of one of De Palma's best thrillers. Ah, but if that was the case, this film would not be the guilty pleasure it finally aspires to be.
Laure escapes from the festival intact. Her accomplices know of her betrayal and want her and the jewels. Laure is then photographed in France by a professional paparazzi (Antonio Banderas), though we are not given the information immediately as to why. Then Laure is mistaken for another woman at a local church. She narrowly escapes certain death from her accomplices who want the jewels. Laure is taken in by the kind family who assume she is someone she is not. A suicide takes place. Laure (or her double) is on a plane to the United States where she meets an American ambassador (Peter Coyote). Seven years pass. Laure, now Mrs. Watts, is married to that ambassador. Banderas turns up again, involved in a double-crossing that keeps getting more and more complicated until we have given up. The key to this mystery is not clear until we get to an ending that asks us to determine what our fates might have been if we could turn back the clock.
The ending is silly and anticlimactic, but so is most of "Femme Fatale." The difference lies in the execution, and De Palma knows his notes of suspense and cross-cutting between parallel actions better than anybody since Hitchcock. "Femme Fatale" is more in line with "Dressed to Kill" and "Body Double" in its sleazy, sexual factor. Romjin-Stamos has a few nude scenes and some scenes of highly charged eroticism. She also adorns various styles of dress and hairstyles - a sort of homage to "Vertigo" times 10. Stamos's Laure is so amoral that Linda Fiorentino could take lessons from this true femme fatale. Speaking of Fiorentino, I admired her performance in "The Last Seduction" but this Laure is such a seductively sexual, sleek creature that I will not soon forget her. Stamos is not exactly a terrific actress but she has high energy and oodles of charisma - consider her a true siren in the film noir canon.
"Femme Fatale" is not a serious work nor a serious noir at all. It is a playful digression on noir - a pop carnival of heightened emotions and double twists in the form of a dream. It is a strange dream indeed, combined with De Palma's flair for whirlwind camera moves and excellent tracking shots that nobody can wield better than the master himself. It is also De Palma enjoying his parodic bent on suspense and noir, not to mention his own classic thrillers (I can only think of a Hitchcockian comparison in the playful "Family Plot," which was Hitch's joke on thrillers). As "Raising Cain" was a joke on horror, "Femme Fatale" is a joke on suspense. Don't listen to the naysayers. De Palma is back and better than ever.
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