MON CRIME (THE CRIME IS MINE)

Stylish production design and campy fun keep Mon Crime afloat, even if François Ozon loses the plot completely in a final act that can easily be skipped.

In his most recent pictures French director François Ozon has shown an annoying tendency to get stuck in the meticulously manicured, stagey worlds he tends to create. He does so again in the final act of Mon Crime, though luckily the preceding hour is entertaining enough not to care to much about the botched landing.

The movie opens with the raising of a theatre curtain and much of what follows can easily be descibed as a filmed play, about a struggling actress who opportunistically claims to have killed a well-known producer to make a name for herself.

Aided by a pleasingly old-school production design that vividly brings to life 1930's Paris Mon Crime is reminiscent of the fast-moving screwball comedies of the era. Unfortunately Ozon often tries to move along the plot a bit too quickly, as the actors rattle off their dialogue so quickly you'd think they have a train to catch.

Despite obvious links to today's true-crime obsessed world the picture still works best if you regard it as a stylish pastiche of the murder mysteries of old. So in some ways, it does what last year's See How They Run wanted to do, only better.

release: 2023

director: François Ozon

starring: Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Rebecca Marder, Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini