TV-weatherwoman turned talkshow host Gabrielle (Ludivine Sagnier) is
torn between two men, the writer Charles (Francois Berléand), who is much
older than her, and the young and unstable dandy Paul (Benoît Magimel),
who lives off his dad's inheritance, and who is Charles' sworn enemy.
Actually, she realls loves Charles, despite the fact that he is happily
married to Dona (Valeria Cavalli) and likes to treat her like dirt - like
breaking off with her immediately after they first had sex. Eventually
though, she seems to be able to conquer Charles, who also promises her to
leave his wife - but in return she has to join his swinger parties he
holds regularly at a local club ... but after she has done everything he
asked her to, he not only vanishes without a trace, he also has the locks
to their lovenest changed ...
Gabrielle is heartbroken, and only Paul tries to cheer her up and
succeeds to an extent, so much so that she actually agrees to marry him,
even though she doesn't love him (which she freely admits to him).
On the eve of her wedding, Charles shows up again and asks her not to
marry Paul, but she turns him down. Once Gabrielle and Paul are married
though, he just can't come over his jealousy towards Charles and
especially the whole swingerclub affair, and at a social function, Paul
shoots Charles dead in cold blood.
When he's in jail, Paul's mother (Caroline Sihol), who always openly
deplored Gabrielle, implores her to paint Charles in a shady light to let
her son off (relatively) easy by telling her a cock-and-bull story about
Paul accidently killing his brother at age three, and Gabrielle is naive
enough to tell the truth and nothing but the truth in court, which puts
her into the center of a sex scandal - and really gets Paul off easy.
Paul's mom meanwhile has seen to it that Paul divorces Gabrielle on the
spot and that she doesn't get a penny of his fortune. In the end,
Gabrielle has become a magician's assistant who is sawed in two on a
regular basis.
Claude Chabrol does what he always does, making a bitter satire of the bourgeoisie
... only the more often he does it, the more repetitive it seems. Now
that's not to say that La Fille Coupée en Deux is an all bad film,
it has its amusing moments, however it's also not all that special and it
lacks its edge, and especially the swingerclub-subplot is so clumsily and
subtly hinted at that one at once feels reminded of similar themed Joe
Sarno-films from the 1960's (e.g. Sin
in the Suburbs) and at the same time realizes how much more
finesse exploitation director Sarno has put into his direction more than
40 years ago compared to the celebrated French director. Plus, the ending
(the magic show) is nothing short of heavy-handed and little more than a
cliché not worthy of Chabrol.
That all said, La Fille Coupée en Deux is not all bad, but
Claude Chabrol has made much better movies and should not be judged by
this one.
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