MOVIES: The Flower of Evil (**)

THE FLOWER OF EVIL
A film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****): **


Ten points! Imagine that. The "Y" tile in the French version of Scrabble,
since that letter occurs less frequently than in English, is worth the
maximum amount of ten points. The Scrabble game in Claude Chabrol's THE
FLOWER OF EVIL (LA FLEUR DU MAL) was the highlight for me in this very small
comedy of manners, which is augmented by a tiny mystery about some events in
a family's past.



"You make good coffee," Michèle Charpin-Vasseur (Mélanie Doutey) tells her
cousin François Vasseur (Benoît Magimel), as they share breakfast on their
weekend alone by the sea. "Your croissants are warm," he replies. That's
about as exciting as story's stagy dialog gets. Given that the young lovers
are not only cousins, but step-siblings who have had the hots for each other
since the age of thirteen, you might expect their incestuous affair to
generate some sparks of controversy, but, the picture being set in France,
nobody cares in the slightest.



After marking time for an hour and a half with small talk and hints of the
old family controversy regarding Nazi collaboration and a mysterious
accident, the movie finally gets into gear in the last part of the last act.
You might miss this, however, since you may have long since fallen asleep.
THE FLOWER OF EVIL is handsomely shot and respectably acted but decidedly
dull.



THE FLOWER OF EVIL runs 1:44. The film is in French with English subtitles.
It is not rated but might be PG-13 for some violence and language and would
be acceptable for teenagers.



The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, November 14, 2003.
In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the Camera Cinemas.



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