Love Crime: movie review

Kristin Scott Thomas, who, in her own stealthy way, is in almost as many movies these days as Jessica Chastain, stars opposite Ludivine Sagnier in the psychological thriller “Love Crime” – a title that should be taken quite literally.

This last film by the French director Alain Corneau, who died in 2010, is an odd amalgam of a kinky, upside-down “All About Eve” and a police procedural, and the two parts split evenly down the middle – first love, then crime.

Thomas plays a power-grabby top executive in the Paris office of an American-based multinational company, and Sagnier plays her dutiful underling. Their ambiguous relationship spirals from sensual to brutal, as Corneau sets up a series of surprises that, lo and behold, are actually surprising.

“Love Crime” never builds on its own best possibilities, though. It’s all tease in the first half, and all implausibilities in the second. Still, Thomas is always worth watching, in French or in English, whether her mood be chilly or tropical. Grade: B- (Unrated.)