star cast
“My fabulous crime”: satire by François Ozon
Actress Madeleine Verdier (Nadia Tereszkiewicz, l), lawyer Pauline Mauleon (Rebecca Marder, r) and the murderess Odette Chaumette (Isabelle Huppert). photo
© Carole Bethuel/Weltkino/dpa
With “My fabulous crime” François Ozon returns to comedy. The satire is cast with French stars like Isabelle Huppert, Dany Boon and Fabrice Luchini.
1930s Paris. Madeleine Verdier, a young and penniless actress, is accused of murdering a famous producer. She confesses despite being innocent.
With the complicity of her Friend Pauline, a lawyer without a client and without money, pleads self-defense and is acquitted. The process makes Madeleine a star. All would be well for the two friends and their future careers if it weren’t for the real culprit.
François Ozon has a penchant for adaptations (“8 Women”, “Summer 85”, “Peter von Kant”). For “My Fabulous Crime” (originally: “Mon crime”), the French director uses the play of the same name by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil. The story of a banker’s murder in 1934 immersed Ozon in the current zeitgeist. Extremely serious themes are hidden in the apparently light-hearted comedy – sexual assault, sexist violence in the cinema or misogyny.
A typical ozone
With his latest film, the 55-year-old director returns to comedy after “8 Women” and “The Jewel”. He applies his recipe for success again: fantasy mixed with lightness, theatricality, a sharp dose of satire and the absurd. The whole thing is embedded in a retro patina, into which he mixes a lot of the contemporary at the same time.
In the scathing and clever satire, the women are modern-day heroines, while the male sex proves to be as pathetic and pathetic as they are hilarious. It is carried by an extraordinary cast: the award-winning young stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Rebecca Marder are in top form as Madeleine and Pauline. Isabelle Huppert shines as the actual murderess and former silent film diva who, with holey mittens in a Belle Époque costume, is hoping for her comeback.
Among the male characters, Dany Boon is convincing, who, as a nouveau riche hedonist, has exchanged his delicious Ch’ti dialect for that of Marseille. And Fabrice Luchini plays a tolerable investigative judge who is finally catapulted up the career ladder as a result of the case.
Whimsical, burlesque, charming and brilliantly interpreted: With “My Fabulous Crime” Ozon has made a brilliant comedy – and one of his best films.
My fabulous crime, France, 2023, 102 min., FSK oA, by François Ozon, with Isabelle Huppert, Dany Boon, Fabrice Luchini