Passion

What was that, anyway? An exhilarating suspense carried with style but lacking in content or an intriguing whodunit that seems to live and breathe with sensuality but it's just a giant tease to cause some stir in the audience? De Palma's awaited return "Passion" has him returning to his days of "Dressed to Kill" and "Sisters" with a touch of "Basic Instinct" (this one directed by Paul Verhoeven) but failing in all accounts to look like any of those. Not only the man is out of ideas by remaking this (the original is a French film), he's also completely lost and confuse and the latter spread fast among us viewers so accustomed to see him completely in charge of what's he doing, always referencing the master of suspense and trying some innovations.

It doesn't go all the way down. There's admirable qualities in the story that involves jealousy, possession, lust, ambition, murder, mystery and other associated matters. In an advertising agency, the ultimate power comes from Christine Stanford, a hateful shrew (Rachel McAdams, brilliant) who is deeply admired by her dedicated protégée Isabelle (Noomi Rapace), who does anything to earn her respect by coming up with great ideas to promote the company and the clients' products. The ideas work, she's heading to be promoted but the boss takes up further and gets the credit for the idea. There's misunderstanding, outrageous acts by both sides of the issue, tense work environment and then tragedy takes place with a lousy investigation on course. And who killed Christine?

We're told that this is a story about passion. But it's more about intrigue, manipulation and domination than just desire. There's something going on between assistant and chief but we don't know exactly what. The first seems to be fascinated with the woman of power and action while the second is just using of all possible ways to get her things done, to explore everyone around her but ultimately is someone with some small weaknesses. Like "Basic Instict" it goes with the premise everyone's bisexual in a way. Or perhaps, they just "shift" of preference to follow their goals (as evidenced, Isabelle has an affair with Dirk, Christine's boyfriend). And that's where De Palma's movie deserved more outcry from the LGBT community than all of what Verhoeven's movie got. Not just because of that, but specially the way all the female characters are treated (and we have to include Isabelle's assistant, played by Karoline Herfurth). They're presented as manipulative, insensitive, mean spirited among other things, people who'll do anything to succeed, and here comes the sad example of the movie, weakened due to what they are in their sexual nature, represented on a tasteless scene where Christine schemes to fire Isabelle's aide on the grounds of being harassed by her. But those protests are pointless, the best one can do is really bad-mouth the movie.

"Passion" is not a bad movie, it just makes a lot of wrong turns on the way that it looks bad. The script when it comes to give us realistic elements (such as the work routines both the agency and the police, second half of the film) is a completely mess using of unbelievable situations, inauthentic reactions and behavior, very ridiculous at times. The weakest part was the public humiliation suffered by Isabelle. Since the idea is to come up with unbelievable situations, she should have pulled the George Costanza card ("Oh yeah? And I've had sex with your boyfriend!") as a way to get revenge from her boss rather than laugh hysterically sounding like a sick hyena. And if those "real" moments don't work how come they expect us to buy the cinematic and definitely illogical moments, like the mystery, the crimes, the plot twist? And we cringe to the dialog, cheap and absurdly spoken for most of the time.

But De Palma isn't completely lost and insecure. He creates some wonderful moments, most notably the Hitchcockian climax but using of a modernity element to built tension. Let's face it, he creates some interest and we follow along. Yet he insists in dividing the screen pretending he's serious about focusing simultaneous actions at the same time, technique he explored better in other movies and here is just dull. Call me nuts but I see more quality in "The Bonfire of the Vanities" than in this thing. OK, I'm a little biased because I love that movie despite its flaws. But still.

And I couldn't forget to mention how deceitful this picture is. De Palma is a master in involving us with seductive women, gorgeous femme fatales, sexy creatures who demand our attention and the main characters. However, Rapace, McAdams and Herfurth although beautiful they don't share that magnetic and powerful quality which Melanie Griffith had in "Body Double" or Michelle Pfeiffer in "Scarface". They were sexy and friendly yet they meant trouble. Here, the characters pretend to be too innocent or trouble is already exposed on their faces.

"Passion" lacks of sensuality, eroticism and excitement; its only advantage is to be a little more bold in the kissing department. In the end it's just a minor suspense, almost embarrassing considering who's involved and it's time for him to move on to another direction, trade of genre once and for all. It generates interest, a little entertaining but nothing we can be passionate about. 6/10

DePalma's first film in five years is purely for the fans, a throwback to his sensual thrillers of old; Sisters, Obsession, Dressed to Kill. So right off the bat, this probably excludes the majority of casual viewers who will find this too messy and too illogical to be of substance. Younger viewers who simply pick this off a website, will probably see the visual tricks he pulls as weird, lame stabs on ordinary technique.

The problem is that DePalma has not changed as a filmmaker, it's the film norm that has absorbed and extended so much visual language that was considered somewhat radical in his time, so when Tony Scott films are marketed as ordinary action, of course he'll seem far less sophisticated. Same thing happened with Hitchcock near the end, when guys like DePalma where coming out.

But oh what sweet, sweet DePalmaesque inanity this is!

What DePalma is saying is always in the camera. He seems to say: this is a movie, the result of illusory placement of the eye, so why not go wild on placement? Also: the eye, by its very nature, causes narrative dislocation. He is intelligent, not in what the dislocations mean but in the fact they are shown to be at work, which now and then fool as depth in just the same way they fool the characters.

You'll see all sorts of fooling the eye here. The car crash in the company garage, first filmed as dramatic with lachrymose piano cues and the second time as comedy. Scenes filmed with dutch angles and unusual shadows to register as dream but they are real. A split-screen that lies about its timeline. A scene set-up to be viewed as hallucinative dream but it's a flash back. And later we know it was an untrusted narration.

Many others will make a more streamlined, more exciting thriller, but no one is so committed to expose cinematic illusion like DePalma. He doesn't hit deep, because the illusion is not wrapped around character but around plot, that is always the tradeoff with him. A tradeoff I am willing to make, because I can find more introspective filmmakers elsewhere. There is Wong Kar Wai, Shunji Iwai. Lynch, who brings illusion alive.

But then you have an ending like this. It is utterly nonsensical as story, but the narrator has fooled us so much we'll fool ourselves thinking it's more than madness.

"Passion" was not as good as the original "Love Crime" movie. The story was the same but "Passion" added some surrealistic touches that really made no sense. The original "Love Crime" starred Kristin Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier playing the roles that Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace reenacted in "Passion". Ms. Thomas was believable as a glamorous cut-throat executive where Rachel McAdams seemed like a high school mean girl in comparison. Noomi Rapace was decent playing the Ludivine Sagnier role, in fact maybe a bit more believable, though not as much of a babe. I never got into the story that Rachel McAdams was anything but a catty girl, not some powerful executive. Maybe it was because the age difference between the executive and the assistant was greater in "Love Crime". Much of the dialog in "Passion" was stilted and flat. The story by itself was powerful but the telling of it in "Passion" seemed so amateurish, as if there was no confidence that the story could hold the audience's attention so other aspects had to be added to improve it. Those added touches made no sense and the ending was just confusing. "Love Crimes" told the story straight out and the performances held it together. I wanted so much to like "Passion" and in the end I was disappointed. "Love Crime" was a far superior movie. I rate "Passion" a 5; "Love Crime" an 8.

Hard to believe Brian dePalma has sunk this low. The film is boring, dreadfully scripted, and looks like a long perfume commercial. Real people just don't dress and look like this; DePalma seemed to be heading toward this stylized, air-brushed Playboy magazine look when he made "Dressed to Kill," and it's gotten progressively worse with each film, except "The Untouchables." "Passion's" script starts out to be about two female executives vying for the same account, and then goes off in five different directions. He toys with gratuitous lesbianism in some segments, which might have been bold and sexy in the 70's and 80's, but now just comes off looking dated and embarrassing. The film's 100 minutes could easily have been pared down to 20 and it would have been more interesting and less ponderous. A real disappointment.

Watchable De Palma time killer that borrows heavily from the director's earlier works...which in turn borrowed heavily from Alfred Hitchcock. Whole lot of borrowing going on. Still, that has little to do with judging how entertaining the film is and more about judging its artistic value.

My first impression of Rachel McAdams is that she was miscast but I accepted her more as the film goes on. Noomi Rapace is fine. I assume both women were intentionally directed to act in a somewhat peculiar manner by De Palma. It bears pointing out for those misled by the poster, trailer, or press for this film that it's not really the sexy lesbian thriller it's made out to be. That stuff only plays a peripheral role in the film and you never get any particularly sexy scenes between McAdams and Rapace as one might be led to believe by the marketing.

Still, it's an entertaining enough movie. Not De Palma's best but far better than his last two films.