Pour le plaisir

"Pour Le Plaisir" / "Everybody Is A Killer" is a strange little movie that can be described as a mix of black comedy and whodunit. A car mechanic working in a small French town cannot sexually satisfy his much younger wife, who seems to be fascinated by murderers. His psychiatrist advises him to fake a confession to a murder, and he does - but (coincidence?) the following morning the revolting town bully who lived nearby is found murdered for real, with one of the mechanic's tools. Despite his claims that the confession was all a joke, the police arrest him and he becomes the hero of the town because everyone hated the victim. Meanwhile, his wife finds herself attracted to the psychiatrist, whom she suspects of being the true murderer....As a black comedy, this film is not very funny: in fact, I barely laughed once. It mostly depends on one joke - the entire town population worshipping the presumed murderer so much that they turn him into a local hero - which might have been shocking a few decades ago, but now, not so much. The film works better as a straight whodunit: the identity of the real murderer could have come right out of an Agatha Christie book, and "the moment of realization" is probably the best part of the film. In closing, I have to mention that Nadia Fares is one of the hottest actresses that French cinema has offered us in a long time. Not conventionally attractive, perhaps, certainly not "cute", but with a rough, "you don't want to mess with me" kind of sex appeal - and a knockout body. (**)