Events

Brian De Palma exhibits great panache and a diabolical mastery of frequent, small surprises in his cinematically most ingenious movie since his magical comedy-of-coincidences, Femme Fatale. With tongue planted in cheek, or maybe not—it’s up to you to decide—De Palma turns French director Alain Corneau’s 2010 Love Crime into a droll, erotic tale of female competition. Noomi Rapace more than matches her performance in the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as the assistant to an unscrupulous advertising honcho (Rachel McAdams), who steals her ideas and acts as if it’s all good sport. It’s great fun until De Palma zeros in on the fury in Rapace’s eyes. The De Palma trademarks are all present and deployed with coolly calculated abandon: a brilliant use of split screen; a confusion of identical twins; dreams within dreams; and shoes to die for.

Series: NYFF50: Main Slate

Venue: Walter Reade Theater, Alice Tully Hall, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center