As with 1996's Perfect Love, director Catherine Breillat has also based Abuse of Weakness on a true story—this time from her own life. Writer-filmmaker Maud (Isabelle Huppert) wakes to find herself paralyzed on one side from a stroke. Working with speech and movement specialists, Maud's recovery is slow. While recuperating, she catches an interview with Vilko, a con-man (rapper Kool Shen) who has just emerged from prison, and she decides to cast him in her next film. Surprisingly, he agrees, and the pair spend time together, but Maud acts as if she's looking for an adventure more than a collaborator, and Vilko seems to be more interested in a distraction than a job. Since Vilko feels intellectually inferior to Maud, he brags about his ill-gotten gains, and—although he's married—implies that he finds her attractive. Soon, Maud is writing him checks and adding him as a co-author to her next book. Relatives warn Maud to dump him, but she just laughs (Maud laughs a lot). Vilko may be abusing Maud's weakness, but she has no one to blame but herself. In contrast to some of Breillat's more shocking movies (such as 1999's Romance), the sexual content here is kept to a minimum, but Abuse of Weakness ranks as one of contemporary cinema's more self-lacerating films. Recommended. (K. Fennessy)
Abuse of Weakness
Strand, 105 min., in French w/English subtitles, not rated, DVD: $27.99, Nov. 11 Volume 30, Issue 1
Abuse of Weakness
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