If things that happen in the first 15 minutes of a movie can still be considered spoilers, then most of this review of Francois Ozon’s new film is a spoiler.
But there’s no other way to talk about the latest from French cinema’s onetime bad boy (nearing 50, he’s more of a naughty man now). “The New Girlfriend” begins with a statement of intentions: As “Here Comes the Bride” plays solemnly on the soundtrack, lipstick and makeup is applied to the blushing, ah, corpse.
Yes, as the camera draws back, we see that the bride is dead; then a breakneck flashback montage fills us in on what happened. She leaves behind a widower, David (Romain Duris, from “Mood Indigo”), an infant daughter, and a distraught best friend, Claire (Anaïs Demoustier).
The next big reveal? Claire stumbles in on David while he’s fabulously garbed in women’s clothes.
How will this taste for cross-dressing affect the relationships in the movie? Will Claire exorcise her excessive devotion to her dead friend by growing close to “Virginia” (as David’s alter ego is dubbed)? Is this Ozon’s “Glen or Glenda”?
Well, sort of, actually. The filmmaker’s campy streak is quietly on display here — the movie looks (and thanks to Philippe Rombi’s old-fashioned music, sounds) like a prime-time soap opera, complete with a drab suburbia and visits to the mall.
Ozon delights in introducing snakes into gardens, and he’s happy to insist that transvestitism has its place in his sleepy domestic scene. He’s far too wicked a director to make a sincere social-issue picture, which is probably why Duris, who has a strong five o’clock shadow and crooked teeth, looks like a drag queen rejected for a John Waters movie. His hopelessness as a woman is, I assume, part of the joke here.
Ozon’s been on a hot streak lately — “Potiche” (2010), “Young &Beautiful” (2013) and, especially, “In the House” (2012) were sharp offerings — and this is not at that level. He loosely adapted a Ruth Rendell story for this project (for some reason her books have found a place in European cinema: see also Pedro Almodovar’s “Live Flesh” and Claude Chabrol’s “The Ceremony”).
If this movie had been made 20 years ago, it might have had a little more kink to it; but now, although it’s expertly done, it’s a little late to the transgressive party. Even bad boys lose their edge.
“The New Girlfriend” 21/2 stars
Twists abound in this tale of a distraught friend (Anaïs Demoustier) who discovers a secret about her late bestie’s husband (Romain Duris). Not the best work from naughty director Francois Ozon, but the movie’s campy approach to a soap-opera situation is amusingly subversive. In French, with English subtitles.
Rating: R, for nudity, subject matter
Showing: Seven Gables
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