Love Crime

In the late director Alain Corneau’s sly office-politics potboiler, a sharklike multinational executive (Kristin Scott Thomas) mentors her eager young protégée (Ludivine Sagnier) by means of casual cruelty and ruthless manipulation. Tellingly, they seem able to share an office-mate lover (Patrick Mille), but not credit for deal-making decisions that win handshakes from their too-chipper American overseers. A deadly duel ensues, and a sympathetic sendup of women trapped by corporate ambition into glassy, silly catfights. Suspense only figures into things after the titular crime has been prosecuted—a diverting twist that even then dispels all of its tension right before our eyes. So maybe a thriller wasn’t ever actually the point. As Corneau keeps his cool, bestowing the ritzy-sleek milieu and the light farce of sudden office entrances, his two leads seize the true power of commanding our attention.