DEMONLOVER Rating: (out of 5 stars) Director: Olivier Assayas Producers: Edouard Weil, Xavier Giannoli Writer: Olivier Assayas Director of Photography: Denis Lenoir Cast: Connie Nielsen, Charles Berling, Chloe Sevigny, Gina Gershon Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew

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Review by: Warren Curry
9/17/03

French director Olivier Assayas' (Irma Vep) Demonlover is part David Lynch and part Gaspar Noe. Surreal, unnerving, bold, it's a film that's style is largely its substance. A post-modern thriller, with dialogue in both French and English, which self-consciously wants to confuse its audience with narrative double-crossings and character ambiguity, Assayas' script ultimately has little to say about its subject and tries to be a bit too clever for its own good. But the director's technique, in many spots, works superlatively and manages to carry the film through the screenplay's rough patches.

Diane (Connie Nielsen), a shrewd, ruthless businesswoman shows her true colors right off the bat, when she drugs a co-worker in a ploy to climb the corporate ladder of her company, VolfGroup. The scheme initially goes off without a hitch, and Diane assumes a more powerful position in the company's dealings with a Japanese pornographic animation giant, TokyoAnime. But Diane harbors a secret concerning her professional interests in VolfGroup (which I won't divulge) that leads to mistrust, confrontations, backstabbings, etc. with her business colleague, Herve (Charles Berling), a decidedly insubordinate underling, Elise (Chloe Sevigny), and Elaine (Gina Gershon), an American businesswoman whose company has major stakes in TokyoAnime's output.

Demonlover's script is something of a jumbled mess, plotting its course haphazardly and never seeming completely sure of where it's going. The plot machinations grow tired and the film runs a good 15-20 minutes too long. If the film is trying to make a statement about the dangers of rampant sexual imagery in our media-overloaded society -- which can definitely be inferred from the ending -- it's something of a weak one. It does succeed, however, in creating powerful female characters, although what it's really communicating about the roles of women in our contemporary cutthroat corporate world is not entirely clear, if in fact it is trying to say anything at all.

As little command as it feels that Assayas has over his narrative at times, it's made up for by his filmmaking command. Much like fellow countryman Noe, there's something distinctly confrontational about Assayas' style. The way he uses ambient sound and bits of score to markedly enhance the sensory experience keeps you captivated and on edge. Every bit of tension built up in this film has to do with the visual and aural construction of the scenes, and not with the plot devices. It's obviously both a compliment and criticism of the writer/director that he is able to make an involving film from such a flimsy foundation. Cast-wise, Connie Nielsen and Chloe Sevigny are both good in roles that deviate from their respective norms. Nielsen puts a sexual presence that's somehow both front-and-center and mysteriously subdued at the core of the film -- a very wise and unexpected casting choice.

Demonlover is a cold, clinical film that asks for no emotional investment whatsoever on the part of the viewer, and that might make it a tough sit for some audiences. Those who can appreciate filmmaking that aims purely to affect on a psychological level will find large doses of satisfaction here. Let's hope that next time around Assayas is able to craft a script that's more worthy of his vast directorial talents.

(A Palm Pictures release. Opens in New York and Los Angeles on September 19, 2003.)