Barbet Schroeder

  • Kiss of Death (1995)

    Kiss of Death (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2020) The first thing anyone will notice about Kiss of Death is—holy moly, what a good cast of actors: David Caruso (back when he thought TV stardom led to a cinema career), Samuel L. Jackson (looking young!), Nicolas Cage (as a crime lord!), Helen Hunt, Stanley Tucci (with some hair!), Michael Rapaport, Ving Rhames… I mean, that’s interesting. The second thing one notices after the credits is—wow, this was a completely unremarkable crime thriller. Directed in solid but unspectacular fashion by Barbet Schroeder, it’s an update to the 1947 film noir classic that transposes the story in the 1990s, but doesn’t really do anything all that exceptional with it all. It’s not uninteresting—at the very least, you can say that it’s watchable without trouble. But it’s not anything more: moments where the film is overwrought (thank you, Nicolas Cage) almost give a glimpse into what this Kiss of Death could have been with more verve from everyone. In its current state, though, it’s having a really hard time distinguishing itself from the middle of the pack of 1990s crime thrillers: admittedly a good decade for those, but not an excuse for a film that doesn’t quite reach its objectives.

  • Single White Female (1992)

    Single White Female (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2019) Calling a film influential is not the same as calling it good. At face value, especially when seen today, Single White Female is clearly not that successful: Ludicrous plotting, incredibly familiar plot elements, undercooked direction and an execution that seems to squander the possibilities of its high-concept premise through obvious choices. But this is nearly thirty years later, and the very qualities that made Single White Female a bit of a sleeper hit have been absorbed and endlessly repeated by a certain strain of cinema. What was novel at the time (a female-focused domestic thriller featuring a “roommate from hell,” directed by a woman, featuring two up-and-coming female leads) has become more commonplace. The premise was so compelling that it led to many, many imitators—a good chunk of made-for-Lifetime thrillers (not to mention BET original movies) veers very close to Single White Female. Watching it today is like going to the fountain from which those imitators have drunk. You won’t be surprised to see that it’s somewhat more thematically deep than surface imitations, or that some narrative beats are clunky when they are compared to later streamlined imitators. It’s clearly a B-movie, but both Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh (both of which have had decent careers in the years following their presence here) do well in the lead roles, as director Barbet Schroeder keeps the potboiler going. While much of the plot mechanics play about as well today as they did, the film is clearly stamped with its early-1990s by its portrayal of computer technology at the time, including an early use of the Internet. Single White Female is not a great movie and its imitators have made it far less distinctive, but it’s watchable enough today—especially as an example of female-produced thriller at a time when such things were much less common.