Rent La Ceremonie (1995)

Class Act (spoiler) - La Ceremonie review by Steve

Downbeat psychological drama based on a novel by Ruth Rendell in which Claude Chabrol extends his contempt for French bourgeois sanctimony about as far as is possible... A wealthy provincial family hires an introverted, illiterate psychopath (Sandrine Bonnaire) with fake references to help around the house.

In time her role expands until she's their general dogsbody. Then she forms an alliance with another even weirder misfit (Isabelle Huppert) to bring capricious, bloody revenge on the family’s middle class rules and privileges! If only they hadn't expected their flunkey to read those damn shopping lists!

It's very much an actors film, led by Bonnaire and Huppert, who bring chilly austerity to their roles as the uneducated, plebeian executioners, who bond with just a suggestion of sexual attraction. Virginie Ledoyen stands out in the support cast as the student daughter already an expert in class hypocrisy.  

The mood is understated and detached and brittle, yet uncomfortably, relentlessly hypnotic. It's an ambiguous slow burner more than a thriller; though there is a relishable final twist... It's among Chabrol's more commercially successful films from his late period and a critics' favourite.