Poker (1988) - film review

Hélène, a tourist guide in Paris, loses a fortune whilst playing poker with a gangster-type, Tonio.   To raise the money to pay off the debt, Hélène is prepared to resort to any means possible.  Help comes unexpectedly from her brother, who arrives in her apartment with a bag of stolen bank notes.   Hélène hands over the money to Tonio, not realising that the notes are forged…

For her first full-length film, director Catherine Corsini made a spirited attempt to combine film noir and psychological drama, drawing inspiration from contemporary American thrillers.  Her innovation is to place a strong yet vulnerable young woman in a setting which traditionally had been the reserve of tough men.  The film fails on a number of counts (not least of which is a risable plot) and is overall a disappointing work.  This is in spite of some imaginative photography, which evokes the mood of classic film noir, and a respectable gutsy performance from Caroline Cellier.

The main problem with this film is that no part of the scenario is believable and the characterisation is lamentably weak.  As is frequently the case in this genre of film, the characters are either obvious film noir stereotypes or else weird waif-like figures who aren’t at all explained.  Even Hélène, the main character, behaves in a way that is unfathomable and consequently is too unsympathetic to carry the narrative.

Although the film was a commercial failure, Catherine Corsini subsequently went on to make some respectable television films in the 1990s before returning to cinema, with somewhat greater success, in the following decade.

© James Travers 2004

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