Love Crime | On Demand review

Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier) is good at her job and bad at asserting herself. In return for flattery and vague promises of future advancement, she lets boss Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas) take the credit for every major deal her hard work pulls in. On her first business trip abroad, Isabelle negotiates a major contract and celebrates by sleeping with Christine’s lover, Philippe (Patrick Mille). It’s only a matter of time before Christine finds out and chooses to assert herself in the cruelest way possible, turning Isabelle into a pill-popping, sleep-deprived wreck. Will she fight back or play dead?

Love Crime has a major twist it wouldn’t be fair to reveal; suffice to say that the final film by the late Alain Corneau (Fort Saganne, Fear and Trembling) constructs a noir’s intrigue amid brightly lit interiors, mostly in the business offices that dominate Isabelle’s life. Christine’s malevolence is clear from the first scene, when she toys with Isabelle for seemingly little reason other than to keep her right-hand assistant off-balance. Abetted by Sagnier’s rivetingly inscrutable performance, the film’s real tug comes from its striking depiction of high-stakes office politics as a world where sexual and professional rivalries become indistinguishable. (Available on VOD; see ifcfilms.com for details.)