On the whole Claire Dennis doesn't do accessible, it's far too plebeian and might actually entertain the masses rather than stimulate the academic-pseud axis. So it's a tad ironic that her new release features Vincent Lindon, one of the finest French actors of his generation who is incapable of turning in a bad performance even in a crock of merde like this; the irony is that Lindon also starred in the virtual two-hander Vendredi soir, with Valerie Lemercier, which remains arguably Dennis' most accessible film to date and for all I know she hired Lindon again with the idea of coming full circle. The plot, such as it is, is a succession of improbabilities the first of which took place off screen when Lindon signed over his share of the family shoe manufacturing business to his sister and brother-in-law who promptly ran it into the ground. Having established himself as a master mariner he walks away from THAT career equally impulsively in order to support his sister in the wake of her recent widowhood and a wild child daughter. With no visible means of support he moves into a luxury apartment building where Chiara Mastroianni enjoys a large apartment paid for by her older, sadistic, controlling, millionaire lover who is also - by sheer coincidence you understand - involved in the degradation of Lindon's niece. Naturally she is having sex with Lindon within hours of his moving in. Both Lindon and Mastroianni give excellent performances albeit as meaningless as beautiful fauna flourishing around a cesspool.
Review of Bastards
