Rating: C
Dir: Fabrice du Welz
Star: Lola Dueñas, Laurent Lucas, Héléna Noguerra, Édith Le Merdy
This is loosely based on the story of Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck. They were known as “The Lonely Hearts Killers”, and are suspected of killing up to twenty women, just after World War II. As their name suggests, their modus operandi was to prey on lonely women for their money. This version relocates the story from America to Belgium, and into the present day. Michel (Lucas) is originally just a fraudster, who cons women out of money – sleeping with them if necessary. Gloria (Dueñas) is one of his victims, initially meeting him on a dating app, but afterwards, tracks Michel down and convinces him that they should team up together.
Big mistake. Because, just as Beck was, Gloria is viciously possessive of her “boyfriend”, and does not take kindly to him sleeping with their prey. When this jealousy gets the better of her, Gloria batters the victim to death and they dispose of the body. I don’t know about you, but if I was in Michel’s shoes, I’d then be going to the shops for a pint of milk, and not comimg back. However, the pair continue their string of killings, and… That’s about it, actually. The film never achieves any real resolution. Gloria and Michael are not caught. They don’t get away. I’m a little unsure of the purpose here, beyond a glimpse into the world of the questionably sane, which is Gloria in particular.
This is a little odd, since initially she is set up sympathetically. The single mom has a young daughter, to whom she is apparently devoted. Then, Michel turns up, fucks her, and all mental hell breaks loose. Gloria abandons the child with a neighbour and heads off to find Michel, and become his partner in crime. There’s not much sense of progression. She goes from telling her daughter, “No one is prettier than this little girl. No one in the whole, wide world,” to dismembering a victim on a kitchen table with a hacksaw (top), in fifteen minutes of screen time. It comes over as a little abrupt, to put it mildly. Though it may be the film’s point, suggesting we all have a psycho inside, who will emerge under the right/wrong circumstances.
It does reverse the normal trope, whereby the man pulls the woman over to the dark side, e.g. Natural Born Killers. Here, it’s Michel who ends up being mentally coerced into doing her bidding – or, at least, appearing too. For the final victim has Gloria discovering Michel has got one of their targets pregnant, despite his promise not to sleep with them. Gloria berates him to become more active in the actual killing: “You can fuck her, you can kill her!” Like du Welz’s earlier and better-known Calvaire, we are given a very dark and cynical view of human nature, and the madness lurking not far beneath the surface. However, this feels more muddied, and I reached the end with little more than a shrug to give.