Double Lover
DOUBLE LOVER, thriller, not rated, in French with subtitles, The Screen, 3 chiles
As first impressions go, Double Lover offers up a doozy. After a few seconds of watching Chloé (Marine Vacth) having her bangs trimmed, we cut to a slowly zooming-out close-up of the inside of her vagina, seen from the point of view of her gynecologist. Director François Ozon has dabbled in an array of genres, but he is best known for his interest in what goes on between people’s legs, particularly with his erotic thrillers such as 2003’s Swimming Pool. With his latest film, he stretches his focus to include what goes on under the skin as well, recalling the body horror of director David Cronenberg. Specifically, Double Lover will cause some viewers to consider Dead
Ringers, Cronenberg’s 1988 thriller about twin gynecologists who fall for the same woman. Ozon’s film, based on Joyce Carol Oates’ novel
Lives of the Twins, features twin psychiatrists played by Jérémie Renier who ensnare, seduce, and confound Chloé. She begins by meeting the gentle, compassionate Paul in therapy, and falls in love with him. After moving in together, she encounters his lookalike across town, and discovers that this is a twin named Louis that Paul never told her about. She starts taking therapy sessions with Louis, and eventually succumbs to his aggressive advances.
Issues of consent abound, and there are undertones and occasionally overtones of violence throughout. Perhaps by design, the sex scenes are not sexy, with plastic-looking bodies writhing in unrealistic positions. These scenes are trashy in a fashion similar to those in Fifty Shades of Grey. However, Ozon offers considerably more than 50 shades; he transforms one scene into a kaleidoscopic hallucination that seems to split people like cells, and in another, conveys the shifting power dynamics of the film by allowing Chloé to penetrate the man.
Chloé digs into the two men’s past, parsing her affections for them while puzzling out the nature of their relationship and whether or not she’s actually safe. Ozon handles the mystery with the same clinically surreal approach as the bedroom scenes. He uses a cold, distancing palette of black, white, and grey as a contrast to the body horror — exemplified by the museum that Chloé works in, a sparse art space that exhibits shocking installations — and uses many instruments from the thriller director’s toolbox, such as mirrors, windows, and spiral staircases. The characters and their environments are so coldly immaculate that when Chloé visits a character with severe physical and mental concerns, it’s all the more jarring, particularly with veteran actress Jacqueline Bisset twisting the knife in a delightfully David Lynchian acting turn.
That scene is but one detour that follows the film noir template of advancing the story by complicating it. Ozon scatters the plot’s breadcrumbs about haphazardly, leading viewers down cul de sacs, indulging in thematic asides, and circling the mystery’s clues back on themselves in ways that ask more questions. What is causing Chloé’s stomach pains? What does it mean that Paul despises Chloé’s cat? What is the deal with the elderly next-door neighbor who seems up to something? And perhaps most important, what does Chloé hope to get out of this situation? The answer to the final question is not what anyone would guess, but makes sense within the rules that the movies establishes from the start. Double
Lover is a satisfying labyrinth of a film that aims to unsettle, and succeeds admirably. — Robert Ker