How Long Is “Love Crime”?

Celebrated French actresses Kristin Scott-Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier go head-to-head as dual femme fatales in this scathing, shocking corporate thriller from helmer Alain Corneau (All the Mornings of the World). Christine (Scott-Thomas) is the head executive at a top agribusiness firm in France. Ruthless and uncompromising, she revels in playing diabolical head-games with her staffers that include blackmail and seduction, and enjoys an almost pathologically close relationship with protégé Isabelle (Sagnier). The women also share a lover, accountant Philippe (Patrick Mille), who readily assumes a submissive role to the dominatrix posturing of each lady in the bedroom. The balance of power shifts, however, when a colleague (Guillaume Marquet) shows Isabelle how to "one-up" Christine in the office - which prompts Christine to respond with a nasty, humiliating trick involving a security camera. In the days ahead, retaliation escalates on both ends until each of the women begins contemplating felonious action against the other. To reveal more would be unfair, but suffice it to say that Corneau packs the narrative with a series of unforeseeable twists and turns. As the director's final film (he died in 2010), Love Crime brought Corneau much needed critical acclaim at the end of his life, following a series of disappointments including Words in Blue and Second Wind.