Cast: Rachel McAdams, Noomi Rapace. Karoline Herfurth; Direction: Brian de Palma; Story : based on Love Crime by Natalie Carter; Screenplay: Brian de Palma, Natalie Carter; Cinematography: Jose Luis Alcaine; Editing: Francois Gedigier; Music: Pino Donaggio; Producers: Said Ben Said; Genre: Drama; Location: Germany; Running Time: 94 minutes; Distributor: E1 Films
Technical Assessment: 2.5
Moral Assessment: 2
CINEMA Rating: R18
Christine (Rachel Mc Adams) has everything—a blossoming career,
a devoted lover Dirk, and a loyal subordinate, Isabelle (Noomi Rapace) who almost hero-worships her. All seems
well until she takes full credit for an advertising campaign Isabelle developed.
Christine is immediately offered the New York post as a promotion. Isabelle is
immediately upset but is resigned to acceptance as Christine playfully tells
her that it was just a professional move. Unknown to Isabelle, Christine is
fully aware of her affair with Dirk whom she has manipulated to end the relationship
and break her heart. Isabelle
retorts by uploading her original ad campaign on the Youtube and alerting the
corporate office of her genious so
that the New York position is offered to her instead. Christine humiliates
Isabelle and ruins her reputation. The
latter seemingly is driven to emotional destitution and develops an
addiction to drugs. Only after Christine is found dead and she gets arrested
for the murder, does she struggle to regain her life back and prove her
innocence with the help of her secretary Dani (Herfurth). But her nervous
breakdown is revealed to be a cover for another well-planned revenge which Dani
unfortunately knew too much of.
De Palma has a reputation as an effective suspense and crime
thriller visual director. His penchant for off centered angles, split screen
editing, abstract composition and his 360 slow panning shot to emphasize drama
always resounds in his best works. Unfortunately, his brilliant style did not
shine in this film as his attempts to create an erotic thriller comes across as
cheaply staged and vulgar. It does not help at all that the film is remake of Love Crime with several elements altered
to try to make the story more sensual than necessary. The storytelling is
overthought that the plot becomes confusing with De Palma constantly shifting
from dream to reality. In the second act, when the conflict is revealed, the
whole film falls apart and never recovers leaving the audience confused and
lost.
The film demostrates a classic
case of bullying in the corporate world where those can, do, and those who
can’t, retaliate when no one is looking. Power struggle brings out the best and
the worst in people, especially in the corporate world where fearlessness is
defined by the capability to step on boundaries for the sake of a promotion.
Integrity, teamwork and decency are brushed off as everyone looks after his own
interest. Further, at the heart of self-centeredness and greed, revenge and getting even thrive and consume
the person’s humanity. He thinks that no one who has gotten the best of him
deserves to live. Yet at the end of the day, success means absolutely nothing
as those who have schemed maliciously find themselves alone with an endless
void. Because the more one destroys lives of other people, the more broken and
lost one becomes. The movie proved these concepts but the portrayal of the
physical and emotional violence were unnecessarily graphic. Further, vengeance
was served to those who tried to take advantage or oppress another but again in
a very violent manner that Passion
seems a very subtle translation of aggression—the dominant emotion of the film.
