Director François Ozon has had something of a lifelong creative crush on Rainer Werner Fassbinder. An early career breakthrough for Ozon came with the mannered but amusing ménage-à-quatre Water Drops on Burning Rocks, based on a stage play that Fassbinder wrote when he was still in his teens. Now Ozon consummates his ongoing flirtation with the German auteur with his latest picture, a gender-swapped reworking of Fassbinder’s 1972 film The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.
French actor Denis Ménochet stars as Peter, a decadent film director at the peak of his success and power who falls for Amir (Khalil Ben Gharbia), the young, staggeringly beautiful boy who wafts into Peter’s apartment (the film takes place entirely within Peter’s home) as the guest of Peter’s best friend, Sidonie (Isabelle Adjani).
