L'Amant Double (18) ★★★
THE title of the latest offering from acclaimed director François Ozon (In the House, Swimming Pool) translates as “The Double Lover”. It’s the perfect title for what is a provocative and occasionally silly erotically-charged psychological thriller that revels in explicit shock value and the idea of the audience not quite knowing what’s going on.
The film centres on Chloe (a quite mesmerising Marine Vacth), a troubled and fragile former model who has been experiencing mysterious stomach pains. It is suggested the pain might be psychosomatic and she is referred to see a psychiatrist, the handsome Paul (Jeremie Renier). After some time they embark on a personal relationship, eventually moving in and starting a life together. Chloe, to her surprise, discovers that Paul has a twin brother, the far more aggressive Louis (also played by Renier). She starts seeing him professionally and then personally as well. Needless to say, this seeing double, as it were, brings new tension to her relationship.
The cheekily alarming opening sequence, which morphs an explicit gynaecological image into an eye, tells you right away that we’re in for a film that isn’t going to rest easy or let you get by without sitting up and paying attention. Ozon is a playful director with a talent for poking and prodding audience expectation, perspective and sensibilities. This is manifested here in a heightened concoction of sexually explicit montages, distressingly eruptive altercations and, leaning into its influence from David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers, all-too-literal visualisations of the film’s central doubling theme; mirrors, side-by-side shots from different angles, nightmarish dream sequences morphing single bodies into two.
It’s never quite clear if we’re meant to be taking seriously the sense of ridiculousness that swells as things progress. There’s undeniably something quietly sinister and hard to put your finger on lurking under the skin.
But, partly due to the film’s visual aesthetic matching that of an expensive perfume advert, we’re never sure if it’s satirical as a campy psychosexual 1990s throwback or a straight-faced resurgence.
Given Ozon’s mischievousness, one suspects it’s more the former. His film will undoubtedly split audiences but if you’re willing to take a leap, much of the enjoyment comes from trying to work it out as the film darts about, flirts with and outright shows you every trick in its repertoire on a way to an ending that, depending on your level of emotional engagement, is either devastating or just plain ludicrous.
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