A delightfully slippery performance by the César-nominated Sandrine Kiberlain lends a sly air to this blackly comic Chabrol-esque thriller. When middle-aged pop sensation Vincent Lacroix (Laurent Lafitte) accidentally kills his girlfriend (shades of Noir Désir’s Bertrand Cantat?), he enlists devoted super-fan Muriel (Kiberlain) to help dispose of the body. A divorced beautician who delights in fanciful tales of waxing Klaus Barbie’s daughter’s legs, Muriel sees Vincent’s mission as an adventure – like working for the resistance, with a hint of forbidden romance. But as the police (who are struggling with their own internal affairs) close in on the killer, Muriel’s lonely life becomes more fantastical than her famously tall stories.
Egged on by a swirling piano score that cranks up the melodramatic tension, this is enjoyably twisty nonsense, the Hitchcockian plot delivering a few unexpected inversions, its sinewy stalker-themes elegantly unpicked by impressive first time co-writer/director Jeanne Herry.
