The Crime is Mine directed by François Ozon is a fast-moving comedy wolf in sheep’s clothing about gay rights and women’s equality, starring Isabelle Huppert.
Shedunnit?
by Alexa DalbyThe Crime is Mine
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
The Crime is Mine is set in 1934 and is adapted from the stage play Mon Crime by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil. It does not conceal its stagey origins: it opens with the stage’s red velvet curtains being drawn back.
The film’s director François Ozon (8 Women, Potiche, In the House and Swimming Pool) has wittily and at first unobtrusively turned what seems to start as a frothy period pastiche into a wolf in sheep’s clothing – a dangerous film about gay rights and women’s equality, then and now. We cannot help but see that the same prejudices still exist today.
An aspiring actress, Madeleine (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) shares an attic with her friend, recently qualified lawyer Pauline (Rebecca Marder). Shortly after Madeleine visits a producer, he is found murdered. She stands trial for his murder before an all-male jury. At her sensational trial, she plays the part of a wronged woman, cynically written for her by Pauline, and, driven by sexism, the jury acquits her. As a result of the publicity, the acting offers flood in. However, misogynist men feel they are now all at risk of being executed willy-nilly by women. That’s the first half of the film.
The second half resolves the future of the two young women and shows how together they have learned to exploit the sexism of men in a male-orientated society. Nothing seems to have changed, nearly 100 years later, Ozon shows us. As Margaret Atwood (author of the iconic The Handmaid’s Tale) says in her blog as she predicts the future of the US if the election goes the wrong way: “But maybe women will dress up in frocks and aprons and practice demure and submissive expressions, as camouflage. They’ve done it before. Lots. Work on your simpers, ladies.”
At the last minute, Isabelle Huppert arrives and does a wonderful, flamboyant spoiler turn as faded silent-film star Odette Chaumette. She provides another take on the ‘crime’,and the relationship between women and men.
Another exceptional film from Ozon.
The Crime is Mine premiered at Cannes and is released on 18 October 2024 in the UK and Ireland.
