Based on a novel by the legendary French noir team of Boileau-Narcejac, this is a stodgily acted, tempest-in-a-teapot tale of a femme fatale and a pair of men she ensnares.
Over the credits, scenes of a couple making love are intercut with the same couple struggling with each other in a car, which plows head-on into a truck. Months later, in Paris, writer David Merkin (Judd Nelson) is released from the hospital and looks up his photographer friend Max (Roy Dupuis).
His recovery has been monitored through a corrupt nurse (Luci Gagnon) by the mysterious Patrick Garavan (Pierce Brosnan).
In flashback, we meet fashion model Annabelle (Laurence Treil), who is so moved by reading David's poorly received first novel, "A Taste of Tears," that she seeks him out. They begin a tempestuous love affair, which inspires David to write a second novel, "Rendez-Vous d'Anna," which he submits
anonymously to a new novel competition.
David is jealous of Annabelle's flirtatiousness, and upset that she's keeping a secret that she promises will bring them lots of money. David asks Max for help, and he trails Annabelle to a chateau belonging to Patrick, where he photographs her being photographed in a nude menage-a-trois by
Mark (Lorenzo Caccialanza).
Enraged, David confronts Mark, accidentally kills him, and holes up in a sleazy Paris hotel. Annabelle, distraught, finds him and says that her secret was that she has just signed a lucrative contract to represent a new perfume. Patrick, who has been obsessed with Annabelle since she first came
to Paris and stayed at his chateau with her aunt (Dany Kogan), his housekeeper, tells Annabelle that David killed Mark, and the ensuing argument leads to the car crash, in which Annabelle is killed.
After his release from the hospital, David sees his novel--which has won the new novel competition--published under Patrick's name. Annabelle, we learn, stole David's disk for Patrick, who is a successful writer in his own right. Patrick invites David to the chateau and asks him to help adapt
the novel into a screenplay. The two men attempt to discover who the real Annabelle was, and whom she truly loved. The vengeful Patrick shows David the menage-a-trois photos, which were staged for the new perfume's advertising, and plays a tape of a phone conversation he has doctored to
incriminate Annabelle. David shoots himself.
The tricky ENTANGLED is based on the 1970 novel "Les Veufs" by the prolific team of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac (who publish as Boileau-Narcejac), whose novels have formed the bases of many films, most notably Henri-Georges Clouzot's LES DIABOLIQUES and Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO.
Screenwritten (with Michel Tureau), produced, and directed by Egyptian-born Canadian Max Fischer (THE LUCKY STAR, KILLING THEM SOFTLY), ENTANGLED is neatly constructed, with the body of the narrative, up until the final reel, a long flashback explaining the credits sequence. Unfortunately, Fischer
becomes entangled himself in the too-lengthy ending, which bogs down in discussion by the two novelists about the unknowable quality of Annabelle, and by dreary implication, the existentialist mystery of all women. Perhaps only a male French intellectual could transcend such florid rigmarole;
Fischer fails, and his movie's momentum screeches to a halt in the verbiage. Until the sluggish conclusion, the film is fitfully interesting, despite some inadequate acting, most glaringly on the part of ex-model Laurence Treil. Pierce Brosnan gets along on his screen image alone, and Judd Nelson
is too overbearing to be sympathetic.
Although Jean-Francois Fabiano's music sounds cheaply synthesized, this is a technically classy-looking production, featuring gorgeous cinematography by veteran Italian cameraman Ennio Guarnieri. This French-Canadian co-production, which was also shot in Montreal, was released in the U.S.
direct-to-video. (Violence, extensive nudity, sexual situations, profanity.) leave a comment
