Review of Mississippi Mermaid (1969) by Khondaker H — 29 Oct 2010

Director/Writer Truffaut teams Belmondo and Deneuve to spin the suspenseful story of a bride mail-ordered straight off the pages of a Hitchcock catalog.

Belmondo, a tobacco-plantation owner on the remote island of Reunion, is perplexed and pleasantly surprised when it's no plaine-Jeanne, but the lovely Deneuve, stylish-clad in Yves Saint Laurent (of course) and reserved just this side of icy, who's turned up out of France for the arranged marriage. Belmondo's bigger surprise comes when discovers he's sharing his honeymoon bed with Hitchcock's Marnie.

His smitten patience is rewarded with the disappearance of Deneuve - and his bank accounts. Finding she's two women in one drives Belmondo deep down a rabbit hole of Vertigo-styled psychosis and hospitalization.

Then, appropriately obsessed, Belmondo goes on the sleuth for his other Madeline (or thief Marnie, viewer's choice). If/when he discovers her, he'll face Scotty's choice - whether to deal her out love or punishment - and, like Scotty, he'll also have to live with the consequences that fall from that choice.

Here, Deneuve's only two years out of "Belle de Jour" and just as beautiful, delivering a similar enigmatic persona in Act 1. As the snared thief in Acts 2&3, she plays a woman of far baser stuff, and does that just as well. Belmondo yields a competent and subtle delivery of the protagonist waffling about impotently within the emotional dilemma of his own making.

Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas were paired to seriously juice/tramp up the mediocre 2001 Hollywood rip, "Original Sin." True film buffs will fare better skipping that train stop, mostly an ogling of the two hot-bods, and instead catch the express out to this far-better acted, more suspenseful, dramatic and plot-driven destination.