Madeleine and Pauline are five months behind on their rent, struggling to make their way as young adults in 1930s Paris. Madeleine is an actress, desperate to break into the film industry, and Pauline is a new lawyer with no clients. When Madeleine attends an audition with a movie producer who ends up murdered after her visit, she becomes the prime suspect and goes to court with representation from her best friend and roommate, Pauline. Madeleine is innocent but wants the media attention from the trial, which works out in her favor until the real murderer appears.
Writer/director Francois Ozon’s charming whodunit keeps a light tone, with the actors playing their roles so broadly that they veer perilously close to parody. The story originated as a play in 1934, adapted by Ozon for the screen, and that theatrical feel is still very much in place as the actors ham it up and overemphasize their reactions. The move to the screen makes for a much richer tapestry, as cinematographer Manu Dacosse brilliantly captures the impeccably lit and lushly designed sets, exteriors, and costumes. This is a warm, inviting Paris full of promise, even to a young actress facing a murder trial.
Buy The Crime Is Mine Blu-rayThe two young leads aren’t widely known in the U.S., which works in their favor here as ingenue characters coming into their own before our eyes. As Madeleine, Nadia Tereszkiewicz has the meatier role as the murder suspect who may be playing a long con. Playing opposite her, Rebecca Marder’s Pauline is a mostly straightforward lawyer, aside from some obvious unrequited feelings for Madeleine. The two are surrounded by veteran co-stars who stack the cast with heavyweight talent, particularly Dany Boon and Isabelle Huppert.
Boon gets to show off a bit of his funny side missing from his recent heartwarming work in Driving Madeleine, but it’s Huppert who really surprises. Here, she plays an aging actress desperate to return to the glory days of her silent-film-era successes, entering each scene like a screwball hurricane on a mission to blow away every other performance in the room. If you’re used to her often stoic, affectless performances, it’s like watching an entirely different actress, a welcome reminder of her impressive range.
The film is a light, frothy romp through a silly tale told quite well. It’s mainstream French cinema, designed for the multiplex instead of the art house, but made with such impeccable craft that film snobs can still appreciate it.
The Crime is Mine is now available on digital, Blu-ray, and DVD.
