Tristan

Tristan is quite possibly the least interesting serial killer movie ever, primarily because of the film’s premise. Mathilde Seigner stars as Emmanuelle, a burned-out detective whose latest case involves two victims that died by their own hand. Emmanuelle believes that the two young girls were driven to suicide by a murderer in search of a perfect romance (when the relationship begins to sour, he somehow convinces his victim to kill herself). And therein lies the problem; Tristan is a serial killer movie in which the perpetrator essentially romances his victims to death. Despite a convincingly gritty performance from Seigner, the film remains wholly ineffectual; Emmanuelle never entirely becomes an interesting character, which makes it difficult to care about her determination to solve the case. And then there are the ridiculous sequences in which Emmanuelle confers with her mentor, who warns the detective that she’s finally met her match (no, really). The movie falls back on such clichés often, entirely negating director Philippe Harel’s admittedly effective sense of style. Finally, there’s a conclusion that doesn’t make a lick of sense and seems to render everything that came before it irrelevant. Interestingly, the film’s sole intriguing moments arrive in the form of Emmanuelle’s weekly lunches with her parents. Their conversations are genuinely interesting, and when the movie inevitably returns to the lackluster serial killer storyline, it’s hard not to wish that more time had been spent on such low-key moments.

* out of ****