Vincent,
the owner of a high-class, internationally respected jewelry store
in Paris, realizes that his illicit trading has finally caught up
with him. Trapped between the diamond cartel and the Russian mafia,
his debts leaving him no room for manoeuvering, he commits suicide.
In the shake-up following his death, his alcoholic wife Marianne,
former diamond broker and gemologist, sobers up and tries to regain
control of her life. She finds a stash of large, flawless diamonds
hidden in her husband’s private safe and decides to sell them.
When the two interested parties come forward, however, they are more
prepared to extort than to pay. The cartel believes the diamonds were
stolen from them and wants them back; Battistelli, a former lover
who betrayed Marianne in a black-market deal 20 years before, has
connections to the mafia. Her checkered past returning to haunt her,
Marianne puts it to use in the service of her future. Beautifully
shot in dusky apartments and sun-drenched boardrooms, the film was
written for Deneuve, who effects a transformation from trembling,
mind-befogged alcoholic to film noir heroine. Though the plot doesn’t
always hang together, its tortuous complications and web of backstory
keep one guessing until the end.
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| PHOTO Courtesy
of Empire Pictures |
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