Film Review: Passion

Director: Brian De Palma

An erotic thriller from the famous director that brought us Scarface and Carlitos Way, it was film that flew completely under the radar after it was released at the Venice Film Festival. This was mainly due to De Palma releasing it straight to DVD and skipping cinematic releases.

Isabelle (Noomi Rapace) is an advertising executive who works under Christine (Rachel McAdams) in Berlin, Christine takes the credit for one of her ideas which is presented to management and is swiftly a success. Their rivalry becomes more than just professional as their battle develops and even involves Christine's husband Dirk (Paul Anderson) and colleague Dani (Karoline Herfurth).

Christine (Rachel McAdams) and Isabelle (Noomi Rapace)

Unfortunately it is a big mess of a film, the acting is surprisingly poor from McAdams (too cliché and obvious) and Rapace (genuinely uncomfortable and with only one facial expression). To add to this the plot including lots of sex, including bisexual action, BDSM and murder is somehow rendered into a dull lifeless film. The first act fails to create interesting characters whilst the twists and turns of the final act becoming tedious as you care little for what is happening as the unfathomable conclusion finally appears. The character of Dani adds something to the mix to create some intrigue later on but the idea of cockney chancer Dirk being the object of both Isabelle and Christine's desire is absurd.

De Palma has clearly struggled here to create anything other than a beautiful film to look at, its excellently filmed with an almost clinical touch of minimalist colour but this is one of its few redeeming features. As the film wore on it became apparent that the lack of cinematic release might have been an executive decision after the final edit.

1.5/4 Impressive visual style doesn't cover for poor acting and plot