THE FLOWER OF EVIL
aka LA FLEUR DU MAL		 Search all of phase9.tv






Year: 2003
USA: Palm Pictures
UK: Cinefrance
Cast: Nathalie Baye, Benoît Magimel, Suzanne Flon, Bernard Lecoq, Mélanie Doutey, Thomas Chabrol, Kevin Ahyi, Henri Attal, Caroline Baehr, Didier Bénureau, Françoise Bertin, Jérôme Bertin, Yvon Crenn, Michèle Dascain, Marius de Laage, Jean-Marc Druet, Michel Herbault, Edmond Kastelnik, François Maistre, Isabelle Mamère, Jean-Pierre Marin, Juliette Meyniac, Léa Pellepaut, Yves Pignot, Dominique Pivain, Valérie Rojan
Director: Claude Chabrol
Country: France
Language: French (English subtitles)
USA & UK: 104 mins
UK Certificate: 15 contains infrequent strong language and adult themes
USA Release Date: 10 October 2003 (Limited Release)
USA Release Date: 2 July 2004

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Synopsis

A young bourgeois, François Vasseur, returns home to the Bordeaux region of France after spending four years practicing law in America. His father, Gérard, picks him up at the airport and shows him a city that has changed little in his absence, save for the modernized local pharmacy, where Gérard maintains a medical laboratory. François learns that his stepmother, Anne Charpin-Vasseur, has been active in local politics during his absence. Much to Gérard’s dismay, his wife is a candidate in the mayoral election.

François (Benoît Magimel) and Gérard (Bernard Lecoq) join the rest of the Charpin-Vasseurs at the family residence outside Bordeaux, owned by Anne’s (Nathalie Baye) elderly Aunt Line (Suzanne Flon), who has prepared a lavish feast to honor François’ return home. He’s reunited with his first cousin, Michèle (Mélanie Doutey), a college student who also happens to be his step-sister: Michèle’s mother, Anne, married François’ father after a car accident killed each one’s former spouse. François, who’s unusually close to Michèle, confesses to her in private that he left Bordeaux to study in America because he felt they were getting too close.

Anne, meanwhile, prepares to campaign for the mayoral elections, visiting a local housing project where she’s met with disdain or indifference by her constituents. Flyers have been circulated around town attempting to discredit Anne and her family with scandalous rumours about her mother, who killed her collaborationist father during World War II after the father killed Line’s beloved brother, with who she was unusually close.

Gérard, meanwhile, engages in extramarital affairs with female patients in his private medical laboratory above the pharmacy. François and Michèle elect to travel to the coast, to Aunt Line’s beach house, where they can get reacquainted in private. Line, meanwhile, slips into reverie about her scandalous past.

Line and Michèle conspire to discover who’s been circulating the malicious flyers - both suspect Gérard, who secretly casts a ballot on election day against his own wife. Tension mounts at an election night party as the votes are tabulated. Anne wins the election as tragedy strikes at the Charpin-Vasseur family home. Line and Michèle scramble to cover up an accidental death before Anne returns home with an entourage of revellers, ready to celebrate her mayoral win. Quietly, Line celebrates her own reversal of fortune, and her newfound freedom from a lineage that has haunted her for decades.



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