Exhausted
by the long, hot drive to their summer home in the country, Michel, his
wife Claire, and their three fretful little girls pull into a rest stop
where Michel experiences a strange encounter with a former high-school classmate.
Michel hardly remembers him, but Harry remembers Michel very well--too well
perhaps. He even recites one of Michel’s adolescent poems word for
word. Soon Harry and his young fiancée, Plum, have joined Michel
and his family at their country house. Harry insinuates himself into Michel’s
family affairs, while encouraging Michel to take up writing again--an activity
prevented, according to Harry, by this web of restrictive familial ties.
Michel needs to liberate himself in order to release the stanched flow of
his natural creativity. Harry, who believes that every problem has a solution
(and the more extreme the better), decides to set matters right. Family
members begin to die. Michel feels better; he even begins to write. But
the murders escalate. Eschewing graphic violence, Moll generates suspense
through the mysterious character of Harry and the unsettling strangeness
of the situation. The result: a darkly humorous satire on current bourgeois
family life framing an astute allegory of the divided (male) self.
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| PHOTO Courtesy
of Miramax Zoë |
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