TALE OF A LITERARY CANNIBAL

THERE are multiple levels on which to enjoy Roman Polanski’s Based on a True Story (D’apres une histoire vraie), none of them very deep. But together they raise the resonance of a masterfully made psychological thriller in the traditional mode.

This story of rivalry invites comparison with the director’s award-winning 2010 thriller

The Ghost Writer, not least because one of the two main characters is a ghostwriter of celeb autobiographies. A teasing, tongue-in-cheek tale of literary cannibalism, it’s a film with in-jokes that will play best with audiences who watch France Culture programmes. But there’s nothing so obscure it would prevent average French film fans from enjoying a few chills from the director who gave us Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby.

Here the screenplay, adapted by Polanski and French auteur Olivier Assayas from Delphine de Vigan’s novel, is an intimate woman’s story about one diabolical mind attempting to take over another. The director’s muse, Emmanuelle Seigner, steps into the laid-back threads of Delphine, a best-selling writer whom we meet at a book fair besieged by fans. She’s obviously at the top of her game, and her boyfriend Francois (Vincent Perez), the host of a book programme on French TV, isn’t bad, either. But faced with the blank white Word page on her computer screen, she’s unable to produce a single syllable of her new novel.

Enter the beautiful Elle (Eva Green), whom she casually meets at the book fair and later bumps into again at a party.

The chic young woman presents herself to Delphine as her great admirer and a humble ghost writer, currently at work on a hush-hush autobiography. Elle clearly means trouble.

But Delphine is taken in by the young woman. Elle’s trap unfolds with silken deadliness.

Admittedly, squeezing drama and suspense out of a writer’s hermit life is no short order.

Had this been a Brian De Palma movie, or maybe Polanski in a friskier mood, one would have expected to see some hot scenes of the lovely Seigner and Green hitting the hay together. – Hollywood Reporter