Wednesday 25 February 2015

Passion.

Christine Stanford the power hungry head of an advertising agency is hero worshipped by her ambitious assistant Isabelle James. When Christine takes the credit for her assistants work Isabelle sets out to take revenge. Sound familiar? I’m not surprised as Passion (2012) is a remake of a French film called Love Crime (2010), remade barely two years after the original. Its nonsense that Brian De Palma remade the film at all as the original was enjoyable but nothing special. Alain Corneau directed the earlier movie shortly before he died of cancer and stared Kristen Scott Thomas as Christine and Ludivine Sagnier as Isabelle. The main strength of Corneau’s original was the sexual undercurrent between the two female protagonists that De Palma’s film completely lacks, which is surprising considering that Rachel Adams is Christine and Movie Ramble favourite Noomi Repace portrays Isabelle who both, I hate to admit it, turn in weak performances.

I suppose the best way to describe it is as a lame TV drama and certainly one that does not excite and is completely uninvolving to such an extent that your concentration is apt to wonder! Although the ending is different it makes Love Crime seem a lot better than it at first appeared. Not De Palma’s best work by far and I liked the LA Times description of the movie as ‘sleeky trashy misfire’[1] which really sums it up. Don’t waste 94 minutes of your life



[1] LA Times. Robert Abele

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