Fidelio: Alice's Odyssey

French actress turned filmmaker Lucie Borleteau turns the maritime "girl in every port" adage on its head in this contemporary portrait of an attractive young female sailor, 2nd engineer Alice (Ariane Labed). Accepted as "one of the boys" by landless crewmates aboard the aging merchant-ship Fidelio, Alice is still a wild card among the male mini-society. Replacing a first engineer who mysteriously died on duty, Alice anticipates a long separation from a worshipful Norwegian cartoonist-boyfriend, but her sense of commitment fades in the presence of the ship's (married) captain, an old lover (moreover, she has an affair with a young Romanian sailor). Journals left behind by the dead man offer Alice some insight into her own tendency to drift rudderless through relationships. A sexually frank character study, this is recommended. (C. Cassady)