Jokingly dubbed First Tango In Paris while shooting, Bernardo Bertolucci's latest is a tableau of incest, nudity and kinky sex, set in the French capital in spring 1968.
United by their sexual immaturity and love of cinema, young American Matthew (Michael Pitt), gorgeous French teen Isabelle (Eva Green) and her twin brother Theo (Louis Garrel) form a semi Jules Et Jim ménage a trois while the siblings' parents are out of town. As students riot outside their window, the kids' movie-trivia quizzes start to take a decidedly darker turn, mind games and sexual forfeits threatening to drive them all over the edge.
Snippets from Truffaut, Godard et al may lend a patina of respectability to Bertolucci's chamber drama, based on Gilbert Adair's novel The Holy Innocents, but any serious ambitions the helmer lays claim to are thoroughly undermined by his old-geezer leching over newcomer Green. Let's just say that her manicured genitalia gets more screen time than the other two leads combined.
Verdict:
NO VERDICT
