After two bland and mostly forgettable films (Merci pour le chocolat, Flower of Evil), the touch of sharp and edgy storytelling has returned to French master Claude Chabrol (Madame Bovary, Story of Women) with La Demoiselle d'honneur (The Bridesmaid), a film where tension builds from the opening scene and ends with just the right touch of mystery and emotion. Chabrol has also replaced his favorite darkly sinuous actress, Isabelle Huppert, for Laura Smet, and though the young actress isn't yet at Huppert's mesmerizing level, she portrays an equally seductive heroine.

Smet plays Senta, the bridesmaid in the wedding of Philippe's sister, where the two first meet. Philippe and Senta fall for each other and soon profess eternal love. Shortly into their torrid affair, Philippe, a likable, hardworking fellow who still lives with his single mother and sisters, realizes that Senta likes to tell invented stories about herself. Philippe is amused by her elaborate tales and takes them with a grain of salt -- until the day she tells him that there are four things a man and woman must do to prove eternal love: plant a tree, write a poem, engage in gay sex and kill someone. And she is serious about it.

Tension is more gripping because you can imagine the fall of a nice, middle-class young man, devoted to his family, well-liked by his boss and clients and morally straight for a young woman whose past and present are as obscure as her thinking process. It's easy to develop instant compassion toward the likable Philippe, convincingly portrayed by Benoit Magimel. It's not the horror of a murder but what that action can do to the half-amused yet half-startled smitten lover. Exploring this contradiction is Chabrol's strength, one that takes the filmmaker to examine the frailties of human interaction, especially among the middle class.

After all, Philippe is easily obsessed. When his mother gives away a stone bust of a woman to a potential future husband, he steals it back, only to keep it in his closet to be taken out to be admired, even kissed. He comes to think that the female face looks like Senta's. Or is it his mother's?

For Chabrol, it doesn't matter whom it resembles. Neither does it matter who gets killed. What is important to Senta and Philippe is the love each has for the other, no matter the price.

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