The final film from legendary director Alain Corneau, the Love Crime pits the fiery talents of Ludivigne Sagnier (Swimming Pool) and Oscar-nominee Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient) against each other in a tale of office politics that turn, literally, cut-throat.
Picture a deliciously nasty Working Girl meets Dangerous Liaisons, the ultimate horrible boss revenge tale with two incredible actresses chewing the scenery. It’s a welcome treat after a summer with a real lack of quality / entertaining foreign films.
Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier) is a young, ambitious and talented executive working in the Paris office of an unnamed multi-national corporation. Her immediate boss is Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas), equally ambitious, who presents Isabelle’s work as her own to win a promotion to the firm’s New York office. Tired of being upstaged, and with the aid of a colleague, Daniel (Guillaume Marquet), Isabelle blindsides Christine with a secret project that the New York office enthusiastically endorses.
Christine’s New York promotion is subsequently withdrawn. Enraged by what she considers an act of disloyalty, Christine begins to psychologically torment Isabelle. Christine’s lover, Philippe (Mille), works with the firm and is suspected of embezzling funds. Using this information against him, she blackmails Philippe into standing up Isabelle, with whom he is having an affair, leaving her inconsolable. Isabelle is then humiliated at a staff party in which security camera footage of her meltdown is presented to her colleagues.
Relaxing at home after hosting another soiree, Christine is stabbed to death by Isabelle, who plants evidence at the home implicating herself as the killer. With police pursuing the obvious motive that she was taking revenge for her various humiliations at the hands of Christine, Isabelle is arrested and, despite giving all the signs of being in the grips of a nervous breakdown, confesses to, and then is charged with, her murder.
Awaiting sentencing in prison, Isabelle withdraws her confession, claiming it was made under duress and while heavily medicated. She begins to pick apart the circumstantial evidence implicating her guilt; scratches on her arm thought to be knife wounds were from a gardening accident, witnesses testify to seeing her at a cinema at the time of the murder and a kitchen knife thought to be the murder weapon is actually located in Isabelle’s shed. The last piece of evidence is a torn strip of a scarf found at the murder scene, an item originally given to Isabelle by Christine as a gift.
Love Crime
Directed by: Alain Corneau
Starring: Ludivine Sagnier, Kristin Scott Thomas, Patrick Mille, Guillaume Marquet, Olivier Rabourdin, Marie Guillard
Screenplay by: Alain Corneau, Natalie Carter
Production Design by: Katia Wyszkop
Cinematography by: Yves Angelo
Film Editing by: Thierry Derocles
Costume Design by: Khadija Zegga
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