[yasr_overall_rating]
Chloé, a fragile young woman, falls in love with her psychoanalyst, Paul. A few months later she moves in with him but soon discovers that her lover is concealing a part of his identity.
“Double Lover” is a psychiatric thriller which just in time for Valentine’s Day gets straight to the heart of a complicated love triangle. Marine Vacth stars as Chloé, a single, unemployed sociopath who initially visits the Ob-Gyn only to find that her ailments, which include lower stomach pain and misguided dreams, are mainly psychological. She is then referred to a psychiatrist, Paul Meyer (Jérémie Renier), who complicates things even more by falling in love with a patient who doesn’t need another reason to sit on his couch. When Paul tries to make a referral to his colleague Louis De Lord, so he won’t continue to cross the lines with Chloé, she immediately becomes obsessively angry but later realizes she truly cannot be both his lover and his patient. When they move in together and agree to take the relationship over counseling, Chloé starts to learn some hidden secrets about Paul that threaten her well-being and the integrity of the relationship.
The film turns into full-fledged chaos as Chloé sneaks behind Paul’s back to seek the counseling from Louis that she initially rejected and the traits of her new therapist become eerily familiar with her lover’s. She discovers, through a bit of research, that Paul has a long-lost twin and both therapists deny they have a sibling. When she starts banging both of them, supposedly in search of answers, she becomes a victim of her own circumstances as the brothers double down to prove she isn’t worthy of either of them. With her life in danger, she struggles to differentiate between what’s in her head versus who’s in her bed, and in the end, an unexpected pregnancy leaves the entire audience in need of therapeutic intervention.
While the film is multi-layered in its complexity, it is wickedly entertaining and evokes plenty of thought as to how the brains of twins function singly and as a unit of halves. The casting of Marine Vacth (“Young & Beautiful”) and Jeremie Renier (“Criminal Lovers”) is undoubtedly a strong suit for director François Ozon who has successfully worked with them before. As a Cannes Film Festival Palm d’Or nominee, this myriad of truths and lies, is both charming and fretful while definitely making twinning irresistibly appealing.
Opens at the Angelika Dallas & Angelika Plano Wednesday, February 14th
