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Critics Consensus: For better as well as worse, Passion is vintage De Palma sexploitation -- although with a storyline sillier than most, it fails to generate as much heat as his steamiest work.
Critic Consensus: For better as well as worse, Passion is vintage De Palma sexploitation -- although with a storyline sillier than most, it fails to generate as much heat as his steamiest work.
All Critics (70) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (23) | Rotten (47) | DVD (2)
What we have here is a tale of lust, deception, manipulation and murder. Quintessential De Palma, in other words.
One's ultimate reaction is likely to one of indifference, bemusement or outright disdain considering the pedigree of the filmmaker helming the project: Brian De Palma.
A throwaway by a gifted filmmaker who has run out of ideas.
Despite De Palma's lavish proof of what he can accomplish with classical technique, the movie comes off as too much for too little, a collection of mechanisms that decorate mechanisms.
After the clinically dull first half, it's more desperate pantry raid than feast.
Entrancing and narcotizing in about equal measure.
Hopelessly dull and flat... Sadly, Passion is merely reduced to silly-minded sensual cinema as it awkwardly echoes DePalma's earlier influences with psychological thrillers.
Despite the low vs. high dialectic, Passion is saying nothing of substance about cultural relativism or commodification.
As much as [De Palma] beautifies this mess-the movie's so sleek, you'll worry that the cast is gonna slip off the damn screen-it's still a mess.
There isn't a lot of passion in Brian De Palma's Passion but there is a love of kinkiness, flirtation, sensation, and the thrill of playing big business games and an odd intimacy that we don't always get in De Palma...
'Passion' is, outside of its cinephile-pleasing gestures, a pretty bad movie. If it bore any other filmmaker's name, would we cut it the same slack?
This trashy agenda could have a certain appeal if it were executed with wry humour or nightmarish obsessiveness -- as in, say, De Palma's Dressed To Kill -- but this time around the whole thing feels so vapid, so dated.
For the most part, this is a solid thriller whose technical brilliance (mainly the fantastic art direction, mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing and score) is no surprise for a Brian De Palma movie. It is just too bad though that the story collapses in such a ridiculous, incoherent end.
Super Reviewer
I thought this was quite good. Visually striking with strong performances, and there was some type of logic at the end. Initially I didn't know what to make of it, but it grew on me as I watched on. Pretty unlikable pair of heroines here. I found Dani the most sympathetic, and she was pretty warped too. Bitching, backstabbing and manipulation with a bit of horror thrown in. What's not to like!
With a talented director and cast I went into this expecting some trashy fun, but it was just trash. I'm on the record in my other reviews stating I hate manipulative movies and this film is one of the biggest offenders in that regard. The plot is ludicrous thanks to contrivances and implausibilities that drove me up the wall while watching. The acting isn't even very good either. Rachel McAdams was clearly out of her depth playing the bad girl and Noomi Rapace is bland. Both of them can and have done much better work in the past. The movie seems to move at a snails pace at spots too, but picks up at the end before the ending makes everything crash and burn. The movie can be nice to look at, which is why I'm not giving it the lowest score you can, but that was really the only redeeming quality I found while watching this. Stay away.
Brian DePalma's "Passion" is perhaps the most self-indulgent movie of the year; by it's very existence it's possible you'll really hate it. You see, "Passion" is the eclectic director's homage to himself, and as bizarre as that may sound, it's also a film that asks it's audience to have experienced a large part of it's helmer's filmography (particularly his Hitchcockian thrillers "Dressed to Kill," "Sisters," "Carrie," "Femme Fatale," and the like) in order to get the most out of it. This sounds like a lot of baggage for a movie of a little more than an hour and a half... and that may be the case, but it's also a stylish throwback, a fun one, and I really enjoyed it. Informed viewers might agree. At it's core, "Passion" is a thriller concerning a conniving game of cat and mouse between an ad executive (Rachel McAdams) and her up-and-coming subordinate played by Noomi Rapace; both actresses really solid here. Plot and characters are secondary though, as DePalma employs all the gimmicks that made him a master of the macabre in the first place. We witness elaborate camera work, an elegantly prolonged split-screen sequence, habituated, left-field sensuality, an over-the-top Pino Donaggio score, an orchestrated timeline that lies to us; in a movie that's not above manipulation. So yes, "Passion" is a greatest hits of DePalma's usual quirks and obsessions. I liked the results. Any fan of it's creator should too. If not, well... you can't say it's boring!
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