This black-comic suspense thriller from France could be the most interesting film of the week: gripping and ingenious. It’s the kind of picture that Claude Chabrol might have admired. Yet there is just a tiny UK release: can’t its distributor, StudioCanal, be persuaded to get this into more cinemas? I predict Elle l’adore – from actor-turned-director Jeanne Herry – will gain its own cult following on Netflix, then get a Hollywood remake that won’t be half as good as the original. At its centre is a veteran superstar chanteur, Vincent Lacroix, played by Laurent Lafitte, living a gilded celebrity life in Paris. (The director’s own father was just such a singer.) Sandrine Kiberlain plays middle-aged divorcee Muriel – his biggest fan. Since her teenage years, poor Muriel has written to him every day, bought all his records, gone to all his concerts, hung around the stage door afterwards. She is a sad case, a fantasist and obsessive, just short of being a stalker, and Vincent has become wearily resigned to her peripheral presence in his life. But when Vincent gets into a terrible jam, he realises there is only one person he can turn to for help. Kiberlain is excellent as Muriel: the high-functioning sociopath – gaunt yet girlish, parasitic and predatory – and there is a nicely turned subplot concerning an emotional crisis in the lives of the investigating cops. An elegant, disturbing movie.
