Complices

We begin with sexy Cyril Descours (as Vincent Bouvier) being fished out of a French river. An apparent murder victim, Mr. Descours was strangled and beaten. The nineteen-year-old is discovered to have been a prostitute, by lonely investigating officers Gilbert Melki (as Hervé Cagan) and Emmanuelle Devos (as Karine Mangin). As the middle-aged couple try to solve his murder, we see the drama unfold in flashbacks.. .

We meet Descours in a cybercafé, likely arranging to meet a new trick on his Internet sex site. When a recent picture is requested, Descours asks a nearby moon-faced high school student Nina Meurisse (as Rebecca Legendre) to snap the shot. Smitten with Descours, Ms. Meurisse leaves her number with the handsome young hustler, and receives his call. Soon, they are a genuine couple. At first, Descours tells his young girlfriend he is a real estate businessman... well, at least he didn't claim to be the Duke of Cumberland...

Descours is actually a prostitute catering to older men. Moreover, his only other long-term sexual relationship has apparently been with handsome young pimp Jeremy Kapone (as Thomas Moraizini). When Meurisse learns the truth, relationships change… Also known as "Accomplices" on the "Sundance" circuit, this is quite an engrossing, modern drama. This is mainly due to the fine direction given by Frédéric Mermoud, who cross-cuts well with editor Sarah Anderson and the crew. The performances elicited are very impressive. On the downside, there isn't much new ground being broken. "Complices" succeeds in the way it treads familiar territory with an illusion of originality.

Helping is the less flashy subplot involving Mr. Melki and Ms. Devos; they balance the younger couple by never actually getting off in the same way, and are thus made interesting on their own. There is also a good amount of nudity; some of the simulated sex is odd, but you can figure out what is supposed to be happening. It is interesting, and arguably regrettable, that the two "killers" who emerge during the story are treated very differently. Watch it. Think about it.

******* Complices (8/9/09) Frederic Mermoud ~ Cyril Descours, Nina Meurisse, Gilbert Melki, Emmanuelle Devos

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.

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.

The opening sequence of "Complices", with a body floating down a river, will resonate with those who remember "Twin Peaks". In this instance, the waterlogged corpse is that of a rootless young man, Vincent, rather than beautiful homecoming queen Laura Palmer - and the subsequent murder inquiry unveils the hidden decadence of the French city of Lyons, rather than that of a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Herve and Karine are the two detectives assigned to the case, and their initial fact-finding in Lyons reveals an additional echo from David Lynch's landmark TV series - Vincent, like Laura, had been prostituting himself. As Herve and Karine probe into Vincent's complicated life - as well as their own - the film cuts back and forth between the murder investigation and the young hustler's activities in the days prior to his death. They discover he was bi-sexual, and involved with high-school student Rebecca, who has disappeared. The detectives soon learn demure, middle-class Rebecca had participated in Vincent's commercial engagements, leaving them uncertain whether the missing girl may be the unknown killer, or another victim.

Writer/director Mermoud creates believable and sympathetic personalities, and his actors' fine performances ensure the characters remain interesting until the story's two time-lines are integrated in an unexpected and poignant conclusion. "Complices" is an exceptional film with an intriguing narrative arc unfolding in an original manner.

"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.