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Submitted by The Salina Art Center
Reportedly, F. Scott Fitzgerald once told fellow writer Ernest Hemingway that “the rich are different from you and me,” which may suggest that the super-wealthy are mysterious, inscrutable, and indifferent to the plight of ordinary human beings.
Writer-director Sébastien Marnier has wicked fun with this notion, playing with audience paranoia about the upper classes while subverting expectations about his characters’ true motives. Our working-class surrogate into this privileged world is Stéphane (Laure Calamy), a young woman desperately needing a place to live. She reaches out to the father she doesn’t even know—rich but enfeebled tycoon Serge Dumontet (Jacques Weber), who invites her to a palatial villa that’s a tacky tribute to consumer consumption.
Serge seems to believe Stéphane simply wants to re-connect with him after the death of her mother, but Serge’s wife Louise (Dominique Blanc), other daughter George (Doria Tillier), and seemingly loyal servant Agnès (Véronique Ruggia Saura) are less enthused, smelling an interloper trying to usurp the family fortune. And they may be right, but Marnier’s puzzle-box screenplay and Calamy’s likeable, charismatic performance keep us uncertain.
Is Stéphane actually being played by her hosts, or does she have secret vengeance on her mind? Perhaps the key lies in the absence of Serge’s beloved son—or Stéphane’s relationship with a female convict currently in prison. The film keeps us guessing, while reveling in guerrilla warfare between the haves and have-nots.
Filled with Hitchcockian suspense, arch performances, and deadpan humor (starting with the film’s knowingly portentous title), The Origin of Evil likely shares Hemingway’s sarcastic, unimpressed response to Fitzgerald’s claim that the rich are different: “Yes. They have more money.”
Rated R for profanity, nudity, sexual situations, and some violence. | 123 minutes
In French with English subtitles.