Double Lover (2017)
L'amant double (original title)
Chloé, a fragile young woman, falls in love with her
psychoanalyst, Paul. A few months later she moves in with him, but soon
discovers that her lover is concealing a part of his identity.
Director:
François OzonStars:
Disenchanted with the ephemeral glamour of the modelling world, Chloé, a
vulnerable Parisian woman of 25, is convinced that the severe and
persistent abdominal pains she's been suffering, stem mainly from a
psychosomatic disorder. As a result, the reserved beauty will soon find
herself on the couch of the charming therapist, Dr Paul Meyer,
nevertheless, the mutual and unfailing sexual attraction between them
will make it impossible to continue with the therapy. Before long, the
ecstatic, yet unexplored lovers will move in together, however, Paul's
obscure past will inevitably lead Chloé to the conclusion that there's
definitely more to him than meets the eye. Is the doe-eyed woman lured
into a world of hallucinations and dream-like sequences?
Language:
FrenchRelease Date:
26 May 2017 (France) See more »Also Known As:
Amant Double See more »Box Office
Gross USA:
$19,040, 15 February 2018Company Credits
Production Co:
“Double Lover” brought back memories of 1994’s dreadful Bruce Willis
erotic thriller "Color of Night." That film features a corruptible
shrink getting sexually involved with one of his patients. All manner of
plot twists and turns abound, none of which make a lick of sense
because the filmmakers thought we’d be too titillated to notice. But
there is nothing sexy about “Color of Night,” not even in the coveted
VHS unrated version that gave viewers a glimpse of Willis’ junk. It is
violent, dumb and thanks to the puritanical streak about sex that runs
through American cinema, practically neutered.
As evidenced by sexy thrillers like “Swimming Pool,” director François Ozon
doesn’t have a puritanical bone in his body. The French do softcore
erotic nonsense better than anybody—and they do it without much
restraint. Ozon’s camera leers at the bodies of his lovers as they go
through the motions of simulated sex or lounge around stark naked. And
while “Double Lover” is as squeamish as most Cinemax-style wank material
about a certain male organ, it’s more than charitable about its female
counterpart. One can’t be faulted for expecting greatness from a film
that opens with a close-up of a stretched out vagina morphing into an
eye.
In that opening scene, Chloé (Marine Vacth)
is visiting her gynecologist, who tells her that her chronic stomach
problems are psychosomatic. Chloé opts to get some therapy at the
offices of Peter Meyer (Jérémie Renier).
Peter is hot but dweeby and wears the kind of glasses that used to
adorn librarians in '70s-era porn. You expect him to sweep off his specs
to reveal a sex machine once he becomes romantically involved with
Chloé, but she’s bored to tears by his mechanical rumpy-pumpy. Still,
she moves in with him and her cat, Milo, whom Peter despises. Peter
doesn’t like that Milo watches his lackluster erotic performances with
the disgust only a feline face can master.
One day, Chloé is
riding the bus home from her day job as a museum guard when she spots
Peter outside talking to a woman. He’s supposed to be at the hospital
seeing his patients at this time, so Chloé senses something’s amiss.
Peter denies that it’s him. Chloé has reason to suspect Peter’s a liar;
while rummaging through some of his papers, she learns that Peter Meyer
is a pseudonym. His last name is really Delord.
Forgetting the
adage that curiosity killed the Milo, Chloé goes to investigate the
location of Peter’s supposed transgression. She learns that it is the
office of another shrink named Louis Delord (also Renier). When she
makes a therapy appointment with Louis, she’s stunned to find he looks
exactly like Peter, though in a more macho, disheveled way. Louis is
Peter’s identical twin, born 15 minutes earlier and the complete
opposite of his lesser half. Chloé is intrigued and more than a little
turned on. But Louis is mean, brash, foul-mouthed and not below slapping
a pregnant Chloé through a glass window. Their sex scenes are of the
violent movie variety that has misled men for decades, with Chloé barely
offering consent at times. But Louis’ “therapy” is supposed to be
better than Peter’s.
So now Chloé is pinballing between nice Peter and bad boy Louis,
and your humble reviewer is checking his watch because this has been
done hotter, better and less snobbishly hundreds of times before. Then,
Ozon starts haphazardly throwing in plot twists that ultimately amount
to absolutely nothing. Is Louis really Peter? Is Peter really the evil
twin? Whose baby is Chloé carrying? Is Chloé losing her damn mind? What
happened to some dying girl named Sandra, and how are the Delord twins
involved? And why does Sandra’s mother look like Chloé’s mother? I’ll
answer that one: it’s because they’re both played by veteran Jacqueline Bisset, who is the best thing about “Double Lover”.
Twins
and doppelgangers are the film’s primary subjects, and Ozon gets some
good visual mileage out of the doubles motif. He splits the screen, has
his actors reflected in mirrors and moves his camera for Peter in the
exact opposite way he moves it for Louis. Ozon’s direction is more
interesting than the script he adapted from a Joyce Carol Oates
novel. I haven’t read the source material, so I don’t know if it
includes the scenes of body horror that turn “Double Lover” into
“Humanoids from the Deep” in its last reel. I can also only speculate if
the source included parasitic twins, pictures of chewed up fetuses and
nods to David Cronenberg’s far superior "Dead Ringers."
What
I do know is that something this sleazy should be a lot more fun. I’m
not sure if I’m supposed to take anything Ozon threw at me seriously,
but his pitches came wrapped in the type of arty airs that always ruins
this kind of trash for me. Your horniness may vary.
