| Femme Fatale | |
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 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Brian De Palma |
| Written by | Brian De Palma |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Thierry Arbogast |
| Edited by | Bill Pankow |
| Music by | Ryuichi Sakamoto |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 110 minutes |
| Countries | |
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| Budget | $35 million |
| Box office | $16.8 million |
Femme Fatale is a 2002erotic thriller film[2][3] written and directed byBrian De Palma. The film starsAntonio Banderas andRebecca Romijn-Stamos. It was screened out of competition at the2002 Cannes Film Festival.[4]
Upon its release,Femme Fatale received mixed reviews fromfilm critics and became abox office flop. However, the film has since been better received by many critics and gradually regarded as acult classic.[5][6][7][8] Warner Bros. had included the film in the catalogue ofWarner Archive Collection.[9] In May 2022,Shout! Factory (under license from Warner Bros) released aspecial edition Blu-ray of the film.[10]
Mercenary thief Laure Ash is part of a team executing a diamond heist at theCannes Film Festival. The diamonds are located on a gold ensemble worn by model Veronica, who is accompanying real-life directorRégis Wargnier to the premiere of his filmEast/West. Laure seduces Veronica in order to obtain the diamonds, during which her accomplices "Black Tie" and Racine provide support. However, the heist is botched and Laure ends up double-crossing her accomplices and escaping to Paris with the diamonds. In Paris, a series of events causes Laure to be mistaken for a Parisian woman named Lily who had recently disappeared. While Laure luxuriates in a tub in Lily's home, she witnesses the real Lily return and commit suicide, providing Laure the opportunity to take her identity for good, and she leaves the country for the United States.
Seven years later, Laure (in her identity as "Lily") resurfaces in Paris as the wife of Bruce Watts, the new American ambassador to France. After arriving in France, a Spanishpaparazzo named Nicolas Bardo takes her picture. The picture is displayed around Paris, and Black Tie (who has coincidentally been released from prison seven years after being arrested for the heist) spots Bardo's photo while in the middle of killing a woman, seen talking earlier with Laure at a café, by throwing her into the path of a speeding truck. With Laure exposed to her vengeful ex-accomplices, she decides to frame Bardo for her own (staged) kidnapping. Bardo is further manipulated by Laure into following through with the "kidnapping", and in the process, they begin a sexual relationship. The pair eventually meet with Bruce for a ransom exchange; however, Bardo has a crisis of conscience at the last moment and sabotages the scheme. In retaliation, Laure executes both Bruce and Bardo, only to be surprised by her ex-accomplices afterwards who promptly throw her off a bridge to her seeming death.
In an extendedtwist ending, the entirety of the film's events after Laure enters the tub in Lily's home are revealed to be a dream. In reality, Laure spies Lily entering the home as before, but this time Laure stops Lily from committing suicide and persuades her to leave the country and start a new life with Bruce. Seven years later, Laure and Veronica, who is revealed to have been Laure's partner all along, chat about the success of their diamond caper. Black Tie and Racine arrive seeking revenge but are indirectly killed by the same truck that killed Veronica in Laure's dream. Bardo, witnessing all these events, introduces himself to Laure and asks if he has met her before, with Laure replying, "Only in my dreams."
John Stamos has an uncredited voice cameo as Bardo's agent.[11]
The film was abox office bomb, taking in less than its production costs worldwide.[12] It grossed $6.6 million domestically and $10 million internationally for a worldwide total of $16.8 million.[13]
In North America, the film played very well in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto and Chicago, but also played weakly in the mid-section of the country.[14]
The film generated more than $19.66 million in home video rentals in the United States (significantly higher than the film's United States box office gross).[15]
The film received mixed reviews during its theatrical release. The film has a 49% rating onRotten Tomatoes based on 137 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The website’s critics consensus reads, "The thrillerFemme Fatale is overheated, nonsensical, and silly."[16]
Among the critics who praised the film wereA.O. Scott ofThe New York Times[17] andRoger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times,[18] the latter of whom gave a 4-star review and called it one of De Palma's best films.[19] Scott wrote, "More than a quarter-century afterObsession, his feverish tribute toVertigo, Mr. De Palma is still worshiping at the shrine of Hitchcock, as well as indulging in a good deal of auto-homage. Voyeurism, doubles, ambient paranoia -- the director's favorite motifs parade before us, along with winking allusions toDressed to Kill,Body Double andBlow Out. Though it lacks the prickly, probing sense of human vulnerability that made those movies disturbing as well as exciting,Femme Fatale is far more absorbing and tantalizing than most of the plodding, overworked thrillers the studios churn out these days. Its brazenly illogical plot twists should embarrass lesser filmmakers who tout mechanical, uninterestingsurprise endings."[17]
Ebert wrote, "Sly as a snake, Brian De Palma'sFemme Fatale is a sexy thriller that coils back on itself in seductive deception. This is pure filmmaking, elegant and slippery. I haven't had as much fun second-guessing a movie sinceMulholland Drive."[19]
At the2002 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, the film received nominations for Worst Director (De Palma) and Worst Actress (Romijn-Stamos, also forRollerball). Romijn-Stamos ended up winning Worst Female Fake Accent for this film andRollerball.[20]
Since then,Femme Fatale has been being revived in the eyes of many critics.[5] The film has since developed a cult status amongstcinephiles.[7][21][22][6]
