The Origin of Evil

L'origine du mal

VERDICT: A wicked French thriller that goes overboard but does it in fun and clever ways, with nods to both Hitchcock and Chabrol.

Who exactly is The Origin of Evil in this latest thriller from writer-director Sébastien Marnier (Faultless) ?

Is it the aging patriarch, Serge (Jacques Weber), whose massive fortune has been built on greed and human suffering? His wife, Louise (Dominique Blanc) — a cross between Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond and Edith Bouvlier Beale from Grey Gardens? Or how about, George (Dora Tillier), the conniving daughter trying to reap maximum profit out of her dad’s estate? Or maybe it’s the maid, Agnès (Véonique Ruggia Saura), who hails from a long line of questionable servants seen in various Hitchcock movies and other whodunits, including all the Agatha Christie knockoffs, and to which The Origin of Evil feels like something of a French homage?

Marnier takes his sweet time before giving us a straight answer to this question, piling on so many twists that he nearly loses us along the way, especially in a third act that stretches credulity to the breaking point. But there’s also much to savor  — sometimes in an overtly campy way — in his third feature, which is carried by a strong ensemble cast toplined by Laure Calamy, an actress who broke big in France three years ago with the dramedy My Lover, My Donkey & I. Her performance should help boost local interest in a thriller that may have a tougher time in the already tough international arthouse market.

Calamy plays Stéphane, a down-and-out fish factory worker who finds herself surrounded by the aforementioned characters when she decides to track down Serge, whom she claims is her real dad. It seems that Serge has a long history of illicit affairs, so nobody is surprised that he may have sired an illegitimate child. When Stéphane shows up at the ginormous island-set villa where the patriarch lives with Louise, George, her daughter Jeanne (Céleste Brunnquell) and Agnès, she disturbs what already seems to be a highly disturbed household, causing all types of domestic hell to break loose.

The first half of The Origin of Evil sits somewhere between Hitchcock (Rebecca and Suspicion come to mind) and the films of Claude Chabrol, where the wicked ways of the French bourgeoisie and upper classes are laid bare in all their depraved glory. (Chabrol’s nasty family thriller from 2003, The Flower of Evil, seems like another inspiration here, title included.) Marnier shifts tones between the social-psychological realism of Chabrol, following the seemingly victimized, blue-collar Stéphane as she enters Serge’s filthy rich realm, and the MacGuffins of Hitchcock, keeping us guessing as to who did what to whom in this severely messed up family.

More importantly, we begin to gradually question Stéphane’s own objectives and origins, especially when we learn she’s an ex-con still having an affair with a former inmate (Suzanne Clément) who’s locked up in jail for committing a violent crime. At roughly the halfway mark, the guessing game takes over and beaucoup plot mechanics kick in, with Marnier foregoing the intriguing class-based observations of his film’s early sections for something that stoops too far into caricature, as if this were a brand new French edition of Clue.

That doesn’t necessarily ruin the film’s enjoyment factor, with Calamy keeping us glued to the action as Stéphane slowly but surely makes her way inside the belly of the beast, only to start chewing it out from the inside. The actress has an uncanny way of appearing at once naive and malicious, and it’s this dual persona that makes her character far more interesting than the other members of her so-called family.

Still, the rest of the cast, especially veterans Weber and Blanc — the latter in full Gloria Swanson mode, with costumes that look like castoffs from Jean-Paul Gaultier’s abandoned collections of the 1980s — do a convincing enough job making Serge and his brethen feel not only evil, but just plain awful.

The major hitch with this movie is that by the end, none of the characters seem remotely redeemable, although that was probably Marnier’s intention. During one conversation midway through, Jeanne compares her clan to a “poison running through your veins,” and The Origin of Evil winds up sparing nobody in Serge’s household — not even the innocent. So much for cheerful Christmas holidays and Sunday lunches. Vive la famille!

Director, screenplay: Sébastien Marnier
Cast: Laure Calamy, Doria Tillier, Dominique Blanc, Jacques Weber, Suzanne Clément, Céleste Brunnquell, Véronique Ruggia Saura
Producer: Caroline Bonmarchand
Cinematography: Roman Carcanade
Production design: Damien Rondeau
Costume design: Marité Coutard
Editing: Valentin Féron, Jean-Baptiste Beaudoin
Music: Pierre Lapointe, Philippe Brault
Production companies: Avenue B Productions (France)
World sales: Charades
Venue: Venice International Film Festival (Orizzonti Extra)
In French
125 minutes