FEMME FATALE

FEMME FATALE is a vile, slow-moving, confused, strange, artsy film about a woman whose past as a con-woman can never seem to be forgotten. It starts with a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE-type scene at the Cannes Film Festival, where a group of bad guys and gals is trying to steal a famous gold serpent that is wrapped around a woman and acting as her “shirt.” After a heated lesbian encounter with the bejeweled star in the bathroom, though, con artist Laure Ash (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) decides to double-cross her superiors and is now desperate to get out of the country.

Conveniently, she looks exactly like a woman who just lost her family and has a ticket to America. An older couple brings her into the woman’s home, insisting that she rest until they find her help and nourishment. Laure takes a bath after they leave, and she sees the grieving woman come back home, though the woman doesn’t see Laure. After watching the grieving woman commit suicide, Laure steals her ticket and passport and goes to America, where she marries a man who becomes a French diplomat. That’s a major problem because now Laure must come back to France quite often, and the bad guys are still looking for her. She avoids cameras at all costs, but one day Nicolas Bardo (Antonio Banderas) steals a picture of her, which gets posted publicly. The angry Laure devises a clever plot to get revenge on Nicolas and take her rich husband for all he’s worth.

FEMME FATALE should have been rated NC-17 or X. This strange tale appears to be a weak excuse to show one erotic scene after another. Between this and the newly released FRIDA, audiences will get a lifetime’s worth of overt lesbian sex scenes. Is that really what audiences want? The protagonist is also willing and eager to perform a number of heterosexual acts as well, and the tone is definitely one of a dark, slimy, back-room nightclub scene.

The story is disjointed and slow moving in many spots, and the protagonist is not even likeable. She is angry at life and men and uses her bitterness to motivate her vile acts. The thought that our young teenage boys will be able to see this film is sickening. The portrayals of women are abhorrent.

Finally, De Palma breaks one of the most common rules of writing. Even a fifth-grader knows that one should avoid writing a story where it was all just a bad dream in the end. Moral audiences will want to avoid this movie and pray for its producers.