HIGHLY STRUNG

(A.k.a. JE TE MANGERAIS; YOU WILL BE MINE)

Marie (Judith Davis) is an unassuming young lady who moves to Lyon to study piano at a prestigious academy. Her family help her relocate, unloading her belongings into childhood friend Emma's (Isild Le Besco) city-centre apartment.

When the family leave, Marie settles down for a chat with her old pal Emma, now a medical student living in the city on the proceeds of her late father and estranged painter mother. Immediately Marie is struck by how confident Emma has become in the years they have been apart; Marie seems childlike in comparison to her friend's forthright and undeniably sexual persona.

Emma relishes in showing Marie the parts of life she has been deprived of while tirelessly training at playing classical piano in the country. She first introduces her to Radiohead, and then later takes her to a very busy, very loud nightclub.

All of which Marie loves. However, she also likes the boys that she meets at such places. She also meets the odd cute student at the academy - much to Emma's distaste.

Emma lays down ground-rules early-on, suggesting that neither should ever take a guest back to the apartment in case the other girl doesn't like them. Predictably, Marie falls foul of this simple rule before long and its here that the obsessive nature of Emma's feelings toward her begin to reveal themselves.

After rowing about Marie's penchant for the local lads one evening, Emma finally makes a move on her initially demure friend. All goes well for a short while as the pair kiss passionately and a little flesh is revealed, but Marie eventually pulls away with a traumatised expression on her face to kill the ambience.

Despite avoiding Emma's telephone calls and racing away from her when she turns up at the academy the following day, Marie succumbs to her friend's charms once more the next evening - and again the evening after that. Which allows for some nice lesbian scenes, all set tastefully to the strains of Chopin and Ravel.

While Emma seems to be enjoying chasing her hot-cold pal, the effects on Marie are less pleasurable: she's arriving late for her classes and her piano playing is suffering to the point that her teacher Miss Laine (Edith Scob) has a hissy fit with Emma after Marie botches a school concert performance.

All of which leads to Marie moving out of the apartment and enjoying a brief spell of successful student life and a healthy social network, including her on-off boyfriend Sami (Johan Liberau) and his mates.

But Marie begins to resent the effect Emma's ways have had on her recent academic performance and, along with Sami being thrown out of his Grandma's house, this compels her to move back into the apartment. With Sami.

This is obviously not a popular move with Emma, but she does her utmost to remain in control of her old friend as Marie becomes more aggressive, openly flirting with Sami and allowing Emma to catch glimpses of her in provocative, nude poses...

HIGHLY STRUNG is a solid slow-burner, a film that allows itself to unfold slowly with fine nuanced performances and a skilfully underwritten script from director Sophie Laloy. Performances complement the typically low-key dramatics (this is French cinema, after all), with the two female leads excelling in conveying a believable web of barely restrained urges.

Thematically, the film teases the viewer with little hints of obsession and unrequited love here and there, while also taking time to build a fascinating character study of how Marie comes of age. It is perhaps a little extreme to think of her as a sheltered and immature girl who suddenly transforms into a smoking, drinking man-eater - bordering on cliché, even - but Laloy and Davis manage to get us to accept the transition, by way of a carefully considered pace and haunting atmosphere.

The seduction scenes are likewise played down, keeping nudity to a minimum in order to elicit maximum eroticism. The classical score employed throughout is not only relevant to the plot but very effective in heightening the emotional impact of these refined, sexy moments.

Best of all, the film enjoys toying with the viewer's ideas of who to root for. Who really is the victim in this curious set-up? Emma, the vampiric seductress? Or Marie, the teasing object of her affections?

If you enjoy films that pose moral conundrums such as this, while "nothing really happens" in the meantime - THE PAGE TURNER and the brilliant THE PIANO TEACHER spring to mind - then this will be worth your time.

The onscreen title, according to the English subtitles on the DVD, is YOU WILL BE MINE. This is how the film is known internationally, outside of France. I'm not sure why Peccadillo have opted to change the title, although it may be to avoid confusion with the similarly titled YOU BELONG TO ME - another film about same-sex obsession - that's in their roster.

The film was presented here on a very early DVD-R screener disc (it's December 2009 as I write - the retail disc is due out on March 29th 2010), but if this presentation is anything to go by you can expect a strong, vibrant picture with healthy colours and sharp natural images. Grain-free and benefiting from controlled contrast, HIGHLY STRUNG looked very good here. The DVD will most likely feature an anamorphic presentation of the film's original 1.85:1 ratio.

The French 2.0 audio was similarly good on the disc, with clear hiss-free playback. English subtitles were good but non-removable on the test disc.

The film could be navigated through by way of 20 remote chapters on this disc; again, this is not necessarily indicative of what the end product will offer.

No extras were provided on the screener disc, but a Making Of featurette is listed on the Amazon pre-order page.

HIGHLY STRUNG is perhaps a little too ambivalent as a thriller, hinting for the most part at psychological manipulation while avoiding tackling it head-on. This may render the film too slow or self-important for some. But for those who are not averse to a subtle drama that takes on the finer points of the human condition like only French cinema seems to know how to, this should be worth a look.

Review by Stu Willis