The Crime is Mine review – Hup­pert steals the show

In a high-pro­file legal case, the accused stands before two courts: the judge­ment of a jury and the court of pub­lic opin­ion. Though the first may rule unan­i­mous­ly, the sec­ond is a more com­pli­cat­ed affair where per­mis­si­ble inno­cence can be brand­ed guilty. Today, court cas­es have become a source of enter­tain­ment like a real­i­ty show that cre­ates overnight celebri­ty­hood. At this inter­sec­tion of crim­i­nal­i­ty and fame, François Ozon’s The Crime is Mine plays out as the pro­lif­ic French director’s first for­ay into crime comedy. 

Set in a roman­ti­cised 1930s Paris, the film revolves around whether strug­gling actress Made­line Ros­alie (new­com­er Nadia Tereszkiewicz) held the revolver that killed a lech­er­ous pro­duc­er (Jean-Christophe Bou­vet). Accord­ing to Madeleine, the pro­duc­er sex­u­al­ly assault­ed her before she escaped his man­sion. But the police, who fum­bled togeth­er evi­dence, deemed Madeleine the prime sus­pect. Luck­i­ly, Pauline (Rebec­ca Marder), Madeleine’s best friend and fel­low broke room­mate, hap­pens to be a lawyer. Togeth­er, the dra­mat­ic blonde and prag­mat­ic brunette face the judi­cial sys­tem head-on in an engag­ing bat­tle of wits. 

With Pauline as her defence coun­sel and de fac­to pub­lic­i­ty man­ag­er, Made­line gives the per­for­mance of a life­time in the dock with rehearsed mono­logue lines and care­ful­ly select­ed cos­tumes. Her self-defence dec­la­ra­tion has her ascend­ing to star­dom, open­ing a new world of fame and notoriety. 

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, Ozon has a whale of a time pok­ing holes in the cor­rupt jus­tice sys­tem. He indulges in opu­lent sets and smart stag­ing as the film bran­dish­es its bit­ing fem­i­nist edge. Also, with nods to Bil­ly Wilder (a Mau­vaise Graine cin­e­ma trip) and the play­ful inclu­sion of genre tropes (iris tran­si­tions and twid­dling mous­tach­es prompt a gig­gle), Ozon sprin­kles The Crime is Mine with Parisian cin­e­mat­ic history. 

The city of lights twin­kles as nev­er before as the blos­som­ing film star and the sought-after lawyer still choose to live togeth­er and even share a bath­tub. The care­ful­ly penned inti­ma­cy between Made­line and Pauline adds a fresh­ness to the thir­ties con­text and ampli­fies the latter’s desire to keep her friend from the slammer. 

Yet halfway through, the ener­gy of the jaun­ty screw­ball romp begins to flag. Then, the eccen­tric silent cin­e­ma star Odette Chaumette (Isabelle Hup­pert) enters. She arrives with a flur­ry of colour and chaos, draped in fur and feath­ers like a French Cruel­la De Vil (a Dal­ma­t­ian even growls at her) claim­ing to know the truth about the crime. Her extrav­a­gant pres­ence brings an absur­di­ty that abrupt­ly ends any mean­der­ing. Tereszkiewicz and Marder delight as a dou­ble act, but it’s Hup­pert who steals the show with a cun­ning smile.