L’amant double (2017)

Directed by: François Ozon | 107 minutes | drama, romance | Actors: Marine Vacth, Jérémie Renier, Jacqueline Bisset, Myriam Boyer, Dominique Reymond, Fanny Sage, Jean-Édouard Bodziak, Antoine de La Morinerie, Jean-Paul Muel, Keisley Gauthier, Tchaz Gauthier, Clemence Trocque, Pascal Aubert, Guillaume Le , Benoit Giros

A vagina that coincides with an eye from which a tear wells up, a spiral staircase that leads to a psychiatrist’s practice: visually it is immediately thick in ‘L’amant double’. François Ozon stomps on straight away – context is so 2016; Within five minutes the boyish Chloé (Marine Vacth) is already with the attractive psychiatrist Paul (Jérémie Renier) with a sublimated desire to have children. Her cat watches venomously as the two make love, and things don’t work out between Paul and this kitty.

Let’s say Latin humor. We can have this Almodóvar light; the French brother Ozon takes it quite lightly in ‘L’amant double’. The absurd premise (woman starts relationship with therapist and his twin brother) is interesting, the elaboration less so. ‘L’amant double’ has the pace and liveliness of a smooth comedy, but quickly switches to drama. This clashes, especially when content is lacking. A turned on soundtrack and hip split screens are not enough. Ozone only seems to want to guide the viewer with artifice, and this viewer wants sincerity, not tricks.

Chloé is having twins, and we’re to believe the brothers don’t know about each other? And yet, when the depressed Chloé is followed by the camera on a bus ride, and you feel like you are watching a glorified commercial, one detail – the reflection of the sun in the camera – makes you jump again. Vacth, who is somewhat like Hilary Swank, is nice to look at – a bony model with Dali lips. Although actual chemistry with Renier is lacking, the sex looks mechanical, the drawn-out dialogues irritate and the drama makes you laugh, alchemist Ozon manages to visually seduce and shows once again that life can always be a spectacle.

‘Rather nothing than fake’, this Calvinist viewer likes to say, but good filmmakers know better: ‘rather fake than nothing’.