La Vénus à la fourrure (Venus in Fur)
2013
*½
Director: Roman Polanski
Cast: Emmanuelle Seigner, Mathieu Amalric
A theatre director is casting for his adaptation of Venus in Furs. A mysterious woman arrives unannounced and turns the private audition into an intense psychological game. Roman Polanski's stagy drama is adapted from the 2010 play by David Ives, itself based on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's 1870 novella. The film starts intriguingly, with Emmanuelle Seigner in lively form, but the line between actor and character quickly begin to blur, and the two performers simply reenact the stage play for the remaining hour. Their dialogue-driven duel bored the hell out of me.
