PASSION (2013)

Genre: Drama/Thriller
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Rachel McAdams, Noomi Rapace, Karoline Herfurth, Paul Anderson, Rainer Bock, Frank Witter
RunTime: 1 hr 37 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scenes)
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: http://www.passionthemovie.com/

Opening Day: 31 October 2013 

Synopsis: An erotic thriller in the tradition of "Dressed To Kill" and "Basic Instinct", Brian de Palma's PASSION tells the story of a deadly power struggle between two women in the dog-eat-dog world of international business. Christine possesses the natural elegance and casual ease associated with one who has a healthy relationship with money and power. Innocent, lovely and easily exploited, her admiring protégée Isabelle is full of cutting-edge ideas that Christine has no qualms about stealing. They're on the same team, after all... Christine takes pleasure in exercising control over the younger woman, leading her one step at a time ever deeper into a game of seduction and manipulation, dominance and humiliation. But when Isabelle falls into bed with one of Christine's lovers, war breaks out. On the night of the murder, Isabelle is at the ballet, while Christine receives an invitation to seduction. From whom? Christine loves surprises. Naked she goes to meet the mystery lover waiting in her bedroom.

Movie Review:

You can’t quite judge ‘Passion’ by conventional Hollywood standards; after all, Brian De Palma’s latest isn’t made in that mould. Instead, the man best known for his 1980s gangster epics ‘Scarface’ and ‘The Untouchables’ as well as for kickstarting the ‘Mission Impossible’ franchise has returned to his trashy roots for a lurid European-set thriller that recalls his guiltily enjoyable ‘Dressed to Kill’ and ‘Obsession’ - and oh, did we yet mention that it is in fact a remake of the 2010 French movie by Alain Corneau called ‘Love Crime’?

Adapted by Palma himself, it retains the original’s skeleton, setting Rachel McAdams up as the cold-blooded corporate executive who manipulates her underling played by ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s’ Noomi Rapace in order to get ahead on the corporate ladder. “There’s no back-stabbing here. It’s just business,” says Christine (McAdams) to Isabelle (Rapace) when the latter confronts her for stealing the credit for a creative campaign concept.

But it’s not as if Isabelle herself is an angel; she’s sleeping with Christine’s ne’er-do-well boyfriend Dirk (Paul Anderson) and pretty soon discovers for herself that she has got what it takes inside of her to play at the very game Christine engages her in. Isabelle too has an ally, an assistant by the name of Dani (Karoline Herfurth), who for reasons that will become much clearer later on, puts her life and career on the line to help Isabelle plot her revenge against Christine.

Obviously as the title implies, it isn’t just about work - besides using her smarts to one-up Isabelle at work, Christine also uses her feminine wiles to try to seduce Isabelle, the former revealing herself to be a sexually voracious creature who isn’t afraid to sexually manipulate who she needs to get what she wants. A midway twist that you can probably see coming adds an interesting three-way tangle to the story, but just when you think you’ve got it figured out, Palma throws in even more surprises into a climax that is surprisingly devoid of dialogue and heavy on Italian composer Pino Donaggio’s lush, sensuous, and deliberately  intrusive musical score.

Indeed, if you’re going to enjoy the shallow pleasures that ‘Passion’ aims to offer, you’re doing yourself no favours criticising it for being shallow and vulgar. Kink, seduction and sex are the order of the day, with Palma essentially bringing his trademark psychosexual thrills into the arena of corporate politics. The mystery in the second half also channels his inner Hitchcockian tendencies, though a master of suspense the director most definitely is not - in fact, he undermines himself by reverting to his old tricks of creeping zooms and split screens, which do little but add to the campy artifice of the drama.

That said, fans of McAdams are in for a treat watching the normally sweet and adorable actress play the ruthless alpha female. Granted that she’s done it before in ‘Mean Girls’, but McAdams clearly relishes the chance to play against type, dressed in deep-red outfits and lipstick with wolfish grins and deathly glares. As her contrast, Rapace is less outstanding; whether is it because she has been made to appear as McAdams’ glammed down opposite, or because Palma has interpreted the role in that manner, the Swedish actress takes her character far too seriously in a movie that deserves to be more self-aware than it is.

For all its ambition of being a reflection of today’s corporate realities, ‘Passion’ is ultimately no better than a potboiler that sufficiently distracts if you so need something to occupy your mind. It isn’t particularly thrilling nor for that matter possessing of what its title promises - yes, if you’re looking for steamy sex scenes of McAdams and Rapace, you should know better than to expect these actresses to be in any sort of compromising position - so if you're not in the mood for one of those trashy novels you read to kill time on the plane, Palma's work will leave you cold.

Movie Rating:  

(A sufficiently lurid and trashy thriller that recalls Brian De Palma’s earlier work; just don’t go in expecting anything more)

Review by Gabriel Chong