Taglines: No backstabbing. Just business.
Passion is a French-German-Spanish-British erotic thriller film co-written and directed by Brian De Palma,[3] starring Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace. It is the English-language remake of Alain Corneau’s 2010 thriller film Love Crime, but with the ending greatly altered. The film is an international co-production between France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The film was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 69th Venice International Film Festival.
Christine, an advertising executive, is attempting to gain professional and romantic power over her up-and-coming subordinate, Isabelle, as revenge for her affair with Christine’s lover, Dirk. Christine does everything in her power to ruin Isabelle’s reputation and relationships, and also tries to fire Isabelle’s secretary, Dani. Because of these events, Isabelle seemingly becomes emotionally destitute and develops an addiction to prescription drugs.
After Christine is found dead, Isabelle is arrested and confesses to the murder while in a drug-induced trance. Desperate to prove her innocence, Isabelle shows the police that she has an alibi on the evening the murder took place. Dirk, having been drunk after being rejected by Christine, is arrested after a scarf with Christine’s blood on it turns up in his car. Isabelle is freed and Dirk is charged with the murder despite his denials.
At the climax, it is revealed that Isabelle had murdered Christine all along, and set everything up to convince everyone that she was having a nervous breakdown while framing Dirk for the crime. Dani, who secretly is in love with Isabelle, reveals that she had captured Isabelle on video with her cellphone at various moments during the night of the murder. Dani then tries to blackmail Isabelle into becoming her lover.
That night, Isabelle has a strange dream where she strangles Dani after being seduced by her, but not before Dani sends the incriminating video of Isabelle to the investigating police detective. Suddenly, Christine’s twin sister appears and strangles Isabelle from behind with a bloodstained scarf. The next moment, Isabelle wakes up in her own bedroom from her nightmare only to face a new one with Dani laying dead at the foot of her bed.
About the Production (2013)
The offices of a prominent multinational corporation is the setting for this story of a power struggle between two contemporary women. Isabelle has unlimited admiration for her direct superior, Christine, a woman well-schooled in the ways of power. Christine enjoys holding sway over Isabelle, leads her one step at a time and ever more deeply into a game of seduction and manipulation, of dominance and servitude. The game is played for keeps, and there is no turning.
From screenwriter / director Brian De Palma (The Black Dahlia, The Untouchables, Scarface), Passion stars leading-actress Rachel McAdams (Midnight in Paris, The Vow) and the talented Noomi Rapace (Prometheus, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). Based on the 2010 French thriller Love Crime, Passion tells the enthralling story of a deadly power struggle between two women in the dog-eat-dog world of international business.
Brian De Palma returns to the sleek, sly, seductive territory of Dressed To Kill with an erotic corporate thriller fueled by sex, ambition, image, envy and the dark, murderous side of PASSION. The film stars Rachel McAdams (Midnight In Paris, Sherlock Holmes, Mean Girls) and Noomi Rapace (Prometheus, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) as two rising female executives in a multinational corporation whose fierce competition to rise up the ranks is about to turn literally cut-throat.
As the maze-like story begins, Christine (McAdams) — a gorgeous, powerful executive at an international ad agency in Berlin — is searching for a killer idea to impress her bosses, helped by her clever but naive protege Isabelle (Rapace). Isabelle admires Christine’s polish and devotion to her work and Christine feeds on Isabelle’s admiration. But when Isabelle comes up with a brilliant viral marketing idea that wows the client, it is Christine who gleefully takes the credit.
Thus begins what starts out as typical office back-stabbing — or “just business,” as Christine explains it — yet soon turns into something ferocious and primal. As Christine and Isabelle jockey for power, a cat-and-mouse game of scheming — professional, sexual and ultimately homicidal — erupts between the two women. But as they become more and more entangled in each other’s ambitions, desires and dreams, who will be the greater manipulator, and who will have the final revenge?
With his trademark mix of wit, melodrama and lush cinematic style, De Palma peels back the layers of a spiraling murder mystery that is as full of jet-black humor and villainous fun as it with doubts and suspense. For deep beneath the icy, cool veneer of modern life and work, De Palma playfully exposes a realm where the wildest passions rage.
Passion (2013)
Directed by: Brian De Palma
Starring: Rachel McAdams, Noomi Rapace, Karoline Herfurth, Paul Anderson, Rainer Bock, Benjamin Sadler
Screenplay by: Brian De Palma, Nathalie Carter, Alain Corneau
Production Design by: Cornelia Ott
Cinematography by: José Luis Alcaine
Film Editing by: François Gédigier
Costume Design by: Karen Muller Serreau
Set Decoration by: Ute Bergk
Music by: Pino Donaggio
MPAA Rating: R for sexual content, language and some violence.
Studio: eOne Films
Release Date: September 7 2012 (Venice), February 13 2013 (France), May 2, 2013 (Germany)
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