La Tourneuse de pages
***/****
starring Catherine Frot, Déborah François, Pascal Greggory, Julie Richalet
screenplay by Denis Dercourt, Jacques Sotty
directed by Denis Dercourt
by Bill Chambers I question whether Denis Dercourt's Chabrolian The Page Turner (La Tourneuse de pages)–which more than earns its presumptuous double entendre of a title–actually has anything of consequence to say, but I sure got a charge out of it. Mélanie, a butcher's daughter, blows her shot at getting into a music conservatory by becoming flustered when one of the entrance exam's administrators, famed concert pianist Mme. Fouchécourt (Catherine Frot), interrupts her audition to sign an autograph. Some years later, the grown-up Mélanie (L'Enfant's Déborah François, who cleans up good) worms her way into Fouchécourt's life and proceeds to demonstrate that Hell indeed hath no fury. What's refreshing about The Page Turner is that Mélanie's revenge scheme, such as it is, is predicated on serendipity: Although the picture sets itself up as a shell game, Mélanie isn't a sooper-genius out to prove the screenwriter's flair for reversals of expectation; she just repeatedly dangles herself on a hook and hopes for a bite. (Given that François looks like the love child of Anna Paquin and Julie Delpy, it's never a long wait.) Cold-blooded in that delectable way we associate with Patricia Highsmith, the film plays a little like a Sapphic Leave Her to Heaven (in particular with regards to Mélanie's sadistic treatment of the Fouchécourts' young son, Tristan (Antoine Martynciow)) while simultaneously harking back to All About Eve, though it blessedly lacks the latter's attendant piousness. Fans of Patrice Chéreau's Gabrielle may find Pascal Greggory's final scene as M. Fouchécourt especially witty. PROGRAMME: Contemporary World Cinema
