Another intriguing erotic thriller from director François Ozon, L’amant Double covers a hell of a lot of ground, veering between Hitchcock and Clouzot to Breillat and Cronenberg, and is yet another prime example of his mastery of blending genre thrills and psychosexual exploratory journeys.
Marine Vacth plays Chloé, a young woman who finally decides to try and help her mental state by seeing a psychoanalyst. That psychoanalyst is Paul (played by Jérémie Renier). Chloé and Paul eventually start developing a full relationship, one obviously full of gray morality and the potential for messy mind games, and things get more confusing when Chloé finds out that Paul has a twin brother, Louis, that he doesn’t ever acknowledge. Louis is also a psychoanalyst, and Chloé decides to start seeing him for therapy. And more. Louis is very different from Paul, he’s brusque and aggressive, something that is initially appealing to Chloé, but soon becomes very offputting.
Based on a Joyce Carol Oates novel from the 1980s, Ozon takes something which could easily be worked into sleazy, pulp, entertainment (and I am not saying that would necessarily be a worse adaptation) and crafts a study of intimacy, boundaries, and self-identity. It would seem to be easy for directors to work interesting imagery through any story dealing with twins, which makes it unsurprising that Ozon (who has so often explored characters projecting themselves upon others) fills almost every scene with ambiguity, reflections, and moments of people being both naked and covered in layers of what they hope is the armour needed to get them through tough periods in their life.
Vacth is very good in her role, showing alternating moments of strength and vulnerability, confused by those around her and unable to trust her own perspective. Renier does even better, although he also gets to have more fun in his dual roles. Distinctive enough in the two separate personalities, he also gets to confuse Vacth’s character by occasionally pretending to be whichever twin she wants to spend most of her time with. There are other people here, and some of the supporting characters are very important, but the film really belongs to Vacth and Renier.
If you have seen one film about twins who are polar opposites, and very manipulative, then you have seen them all. Sort of. But most of them are well worth your time. Ozon uses the ideas here to take viewers on a journey that becomes increasingly disorienting and harmful, which is a way of also saying that he works the material into a typical Ozon movie. If, like me, you are a fan of his work then that is no bad thing.
8/10
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