Komplizen

"Complices" (2009) unfolds in two separate time zones, easy to tell apart instanly because they are photographed with two different brightness levels: in the darker "present" two detectives investigate the murder of a 19-year-old male hustler, while in the "brighter" past we see how the hustler draws his sweet new girlfriend into his sordid world. Despite the salacious subject matter, the film is low-key and elegantly made. It is competent, watchable, if unremarkable, with the ending adding the most interesting note. Nina Meurisse makes a promising feature-length debut in a leading role. **1/2 out of 4.

This movie has an interesting narrative structure with a co-ed pair of middle-aged detectives (Emanuelle Devos, Gilbert Melki) investigating the murder of young male. This is skillfully cut together with the parallel flashback narrative of the young victim (Cyril Descoeurs) and his relationship with a fresh-faced teenage girl (Nina Meurisse). Their relationship starts out sweet and innocent, but he is a bisexual hustler, who in turn gets her involved in paid sexual encounters with various "respectable" but sleazy middle-age men in various generic-looking hotel rooms. The narrative structure is quite effective, even if the present-day narrative with mismatched male and female cops--who are both very attractive, yet strangely both single, and who have a sexual tension between them you could cut with a knife--is an extremely tiresome cliché from pretty much every police procedural movie and TV show you see these days. The OTHER narrative with the young couple works much better.

Cyril Descoeurs' character in a lesser movie would undoubtedly be portrayed as an evil "suitcase pimp"-type, leading an innocent girl astray. It always strikes me as very dishonest and unrealistic to portray a female this age as a wide-eyed innocent while a boy about the same age is portrayed as mustache-twirling villain. The boy here engages in paid sex along with the girl and he obviously genuinely cares about her (at one point he violently beats a sleazy middle-age client who abuses her). It also helps that we know from the beginning that HE at least is ultimately going to wind up a victim.

Nina Meurisse is a real revelation. She has an appealing girl-next-door wholesome look to her and is very talented, yet is clearly not afraid to take on a role that involves sex and nudity in every other scene. This movie kind of reminded me of the recent Francois Ozon misfire "Young and Beautiful". But the "teenage" girl in that looked suspiciously like a gorgeous fashion model (which the actress actually was) and her character simply did not have any particularly good reason to be engaging in prostitution. This is much, much more believable, and its largely thanks to the performance of Meurisse.

I don't want to oversell this movie, which is not exactly startling original, and is really only serviceable at an artistic filmmaking level. But I did enjoy it, largely because of the two young actors.

"Complices" is a rather depressing work ,depicting a world which is exploiting the young ones ,treating them as sexual objects :it's revealing that two "clients" are a (female) lawyer and an ophthalmologist.The two miserable heroes come from difficult backgrounds:we never see Vincent's parents and the boy lives in a trailer with his pimp ,a jealous gay who cannot stand his girlfriend Rebecca.As for the girl ,she is left to her own devices ,her mother being almost always absent and she's hardly eighteen (we learn she is to take her HS diploma this year).The boy prostitutes himself and he leads Rebecca into bad ways ( the bisexual clientèle).Not exactly the romantic story of your dreams.Although the director does not spare the sordid details ,partly thanks to his actors (particularly Descours ,who remains natural and whose youthful look reveals a shattered innocence -the actor was 26 ,whereas he is supposed to be 19 in the movie) he makes his principals endearing.

The movie is a long flashback but,and it is the director's main quality,we never have the feeling of watching flashbacks .It's so rare in the movies it has to be underlined : present and past are so tightly linked that we have the strange feeling that Rebecca and her dead lover are still living their love story while the two cops are investigating.

This is not the rosy world of Eric Rohmer.It's a cruel world ,the world of those "dirty" sites on the net ,of the double life of the prostitutes and their clients .The boy ,eating candies after making love with a (probably) well-respected man ,shows the child still inside of him.As for Rebecca ,who is not a very attractive girl,she's naively looking for someone to love .Par excellence doomed lovers.However, the ending is finally ,in its own particular way,some kind of happy end ,and ,it's another quality of the movie,the cops are not caricatured and show some compassion.

Interesting movie. Starts off looking like a whodunnit crime-drama, but pretty soon it is obvious that it is much more than that. Turns out to be a gritty human drama, with romance and murder thrown in.

Good plot. Decent direction, though there are a few periods where it drifts a bit. Good performances, especially from the young leads - Cyril Descours and Nina Meurisse.

An advantage that American audiences have when viewing Euro films is that you regularly come across brilliant performances from actors you've never heard of. This rarely happens in Hollywood products because almost every popular American actor began as a child star. (DiCaprio, Gosling, dare I add Bale) Even the semi-talented kids get discovered & groomed early by Nickelodeon, pop music producers or the gazillion teen sitcoms, so by the time they appear on movie screens in a substantial role, you've seen their familiar faces countless times.

In Complices, we know from the start we'll see solid performances from veterans Melki & Devos, but who knew Descours & Meurisse would carry the film? And such excellent casting doesn't stop there. Even the smaller roles from Preiss, Ponsot & Kapone are on point.

I'm so tired of hearing other reviewers compare any film with a dead body to Twin Peaks. Films began with dead bodies long before David Lynch was even born. And the body that begins Complices makes Laura Palmer look as believable as Howdy Doody. Hats off to Hipaux & the effects crew for giving us a good corpse.

Mermoud & Arnold tell a simple but engaging story full of subtlety & subtext, only hinting at the character currents underneath. Watch Complices for the exquisite performances, but also to catch a glimpse of how tiny the French make their washing machines.