L'Etranger

NUIT # 1 (B+) - Canadian Anne Emond's feature film debut not only screens like a filmed two-person stage play, but it's mostly made up of two extended monologues, one by the man and the other by the woman, two 30-ish adults who hooked up after a rave for a gloomy one-night stand.

Only two scenes take place beyond the rooms (and surrounding property) of Nikolai's dumpy apartment -- the film opens with slow-motion shots of dancers at a rave, and the film ends in a brightly lit classroom of third-graders. After the rave, Nikolai (Dimitri Storoge) and Clara (Catherine de Lean) stumble through his door and start pawing at each other, stripping in the foyer as they remind each other of their names. The next 15 minutes consist of explicit sex between Clara and Nikolai in the flat.

Clara wouldn't mind a tender night of snuggling the rest of the night or perhaps some conversation. Nikolai doesn't really want her to stick around. He insults her until she runs off in the rain, only to return, soaking wet and in need of his warm shirt. Nikolai eventually unleashes a prolonged riff about his meaningless and hopeless life; he can't hold a job and is essentially a lazy slacker, a beta Millennial. He insults Clara again, she runs out again, and he chases her down and drags her (literally) back to the apartment.

Then it's Clara's turn to unload. A grade-school teacher, she fills the hole inside with sex, drugs and alcohol, shared with random passing strangers. De Lean delivers her epic monologue naked (tastefully) from the bathtub as the man sits quietly listening. The spiel is an impressive tightwire act. At times it threatens to devolve into teen emo diary entries, but it holds together in the end beautifully. (I also feared that she'd be freezing by the end of it without running the hot water. Continuity.)

Emond then breaks the dark mood and offers a coda with Clara's students in her classroom. It's an unexpected exclamation point that is both touching and profound. It can almost be said that it makes the whole movie worthwhile.

This is another tale of arrested development, a true exploration of the insecurities of Nietzsche-loving Millennials. (One reviewer compared it to one of my favorites from the last decade, the Scottish "Morvern Callar.") It's a drab future these drones are facing. Imagine what hell those third-graders will emerge into someday.

ABUSE OF WEAKNESS (C-minus) -  Catherine Breillat had a fine three-picture run with "Romance," "Fat Girl" and the elegant "Brief Crossing." Since then, she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage only to return to the director's chair but with unspectacular results.

Here, Breillat tells the story of her medical breakdown and recovery, complicated by the presence of a con man she invited into her life to star in a film and who cleaned her out for more than 700,000 euros. Perhaps her book about the episode was compelling; on screen it fails.

If not for the electrifying Isabelle Huppert, this might not be watchable. Perhaps the greatest actress of our time, she not only embodies the physical struggles of the half-paralyzed "Maud," but she also conveys the mental challenges brought on by the cerebral hemorrhage. She has the most expressive face imaginable even though it seems so often to be a stoic mask.

But Breillat has crafted a tedious and rather inconsequential film. Scenes of Maud struggling to walk and needing assistance grow grating. There must be at least a dozen scenes throughout of Maud lying in bed, usually sleeping, and being interrupted by her buzzing cell phone. What is the point Breillat is trying to make? Is it a form of psychological torture? (It's usually the con man, Vikko (Kool Shen), ringing her up to sweet talk her.) We get repeated scenes of Maud cutting Vikko yet another check.

We're taught to "follow the money," but that's difficult here. Twice Maud claims to Vikko that she doesn't have enough money to buy food. Yet she keeps writing checks on her account to him and to the contractors performing 1.5 million euros worth of work to her mansion. Maud also befriends Vikko's wife, Andy (Laurence Orsino), and there never is a hint of sexual transaction between Maud and either of them.

With little for the viewer to grab on to, this plays more like an acting exercise for Huppert, which is usually worth tuning in for. But "Abuse of Weakness" plays like one of those Hollywood "My Left Foot" vanity projects; and here very little seems to be at stake.