Roma Elastica movie review: Marion Cotillard plays a movie star who loses her mind and body in a brilliant 1980s psychological drama

Italian Gallo Horror films, and American horror films, directed by Andrzej Zulawski OwnFellini Satyricon A film within a film described as an “Antonioni encounter.” Escape from New York“These are some, but clearly not all, of the works referenced in French director Bertrand Mandico’s enthusiastic tribute to cinema and the 1980s, Flexible Rome.

Clearly aimed at hardcore film buffs and/or fans of extreme kitsch, this behind-the-scenes psychological drama stars Marion Cotillard as an ailing scream queen who arrives in 1982 Rome to film a pretentious sci-fi film, only to discover that strange things are happening off-camera and perhaps in her mind.

Bloodied, drenched in coke, vomiting and, in one iconic scene, Cotillard popping a second head out of the back of her head, a film that is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition: You either thrive on its excesses and cinematic references, or, like this critic, you eventually grow weary of a guilty pleasure without much substance.

After producing a slew of short films and videos, Mandiko burst onto the cult scene in 2017 with his transgressive teen fantasy film, Wild boys. He followed this up with a pair of fever dream features (After Blue (Dirty Paradise), She is Conan) which revealed hints of Lynch, Cronenberg, Guy Maddin and other boundary-pushing directors.

Flexible Rome He’s pretty much a mandeko 8 ½relishing the highs and lows of filmmaking, especially of the B-movie genres that inspired some of his work. Cotillard plays Edie, a screen diva we first encounter at a horror shoot in the US, where she stabs an old pervert to death and delivers a monologue that stuns everyone on set.

The sequences are deliberately over-the-top, but that’s very much Mandico’s style: everything is bizarre – sometimes wonderfully so – from the sets (courtesy of Toma Paccini) and costumes (Pauline Jacquard) to the screenplay that is mostly an excuse to indulge in ’80s nostalgia of the most trivial sort.

After a fatal visit to the doctor reveals that Edie has terminal brain cancer, she decides to move forward with her next, and perhaps last, role, arriving in Rome with her beautician and bodyguard Valentina (Noémie Merlant, Portrait of a Lady on Fire). The paparazzi and several important Italians meet them at the airport, which, like most of the film’s locations, resembles a Cinecitta set made by people who were experimenting with one too many hard drugs.

In fact, Edie soon finds herself trapped in a dilapidated Roman apartment that looks like a squat for filthy rich heroin addicts — a fact confirmed when she meets her neighbors, who work on her film as special effects artists (the reference is to the great Carlo Rambaldi, who won an Oscar for his work on Alien and at). Soon they’re all having a drug-fueled orgy involving the famous octopus creature Ownleaving Eddie in worse condition than when she arrived.

After appearing on a hilarious Italian talk show in which the audience wears deformed monkey masks, Eddie finally gets to prepare to play Rowena, an “art-world rock star” in a future Rome circa 2026. A few nods to our turbulent times (including President Donald Trump) are made in this movie-within-a-movie, though it’s hard to understand much of what’s going on outside of the crazy, manic atmosphere depicted by Mandico. High-contrast black and white, uses overlays and other classic effects.

Flexible Rome It works best when it focuses on Eddie’s feverish state and deteriorating health, both mental and physical. Hiding behind aviator glasses when off set and sporting intimidating contact lenses when Eddie steps in front of the camera, Cotillard is the perfect vehicle for Mandico’s twisted look at the agony and ecstasy of stardom — or rather, the cultural stardom of the Z-grade variety. Actresses are losing their flicks like Opening night and Sunset Street It comes to mind at times, though, that this film is less concerned with psychology than it is with psychodrama and drugs.

This can be fun for a long time, but the non-stop antics become exhausting for anyone looking for something deeper, or perhaps a little tamer. Mandico is making no compromises on his latest feature, which will likely please his loyal fan base more than anyone else. Like his heroine, who claims to die in every film she plays in, the director takes his cinema to the extreme here, going out in a blaze of glory and gore.