PLACE VENDOME
Written and Directed by Nicole Garcia
Plan B NR 117 min. Subtitles
There are great pleasures to this silkily adult thriller set in the murky world of precious stones, and none is greater, silkier, or more adult that the presence of the great Catherine Deneuve. As beautiful in her late fifties as she was in her early twenties, Ms. Deneuve has long since justified the Best Actress awards she won as a newcomer in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964).
She's never been better than she is here as Marianne Malivert, the dipsomaniac wife (and before too long, widow) of the head of one of the great jewelry firms of Paris's famed Place Vendome. When we first meet her, she's virtually a full-time resident of a private alcohol clinic. But the sudden death of her husband (Bernard Fresson) shakes her out of it, and re-armed with her former expertise as a diamond specialist and in possession of a cache of stolen gems he showed her before he drove his car into a truck, she penetrates the dark and dangerous shadows of the diamond trade, from De Beers in London to the burrows of Antwerp in an effort to secure her future.
Actress-turned-writer/director Nicole Garcia keeps the mind churning by gradually revealing knots and tangles as she spools out her story. There are multiple links between many of the characters, of both a professional and a romantic character, but we only discover them bit by bit. There is a determined rejection of consistency, that hobgoblin of little minds; instead Garcia challenges us with shifting attitudes and character traits. Marianne is a drunk; when she sobers up, she can still slip without falling apart. Her feelings toward the beautiful Nathalie (Emmanuelle Seignier) range unapologetically from hostility to empathy. Strong performances from Jacques Dutronc and Jean-Pierre Bacri as a couple of the men in her life draw the twisted skein of this story tighter. "Love means getting lied to and betrayed," Marianne muses, and mendacity and betrayal in love and business are at the heart of this often difficult but always rewarding film noir.
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