'The New Girlfriend': A gender-bending dramedy

Novelist Ruth Rendell's work has inspired some of the best TV mysteries in her native Britain, including the Inspector Wexford series starring George Baker.

Less familiar perhaps is the growing number of Rendell adaptations crafted by European auteurs such as Claude Chabrol (La Ceremonie, The Bridesmaid), Claude Miller (Alias Betty), and Pedro Almodovar (Live Flesh).

French cinema's bête noire François Ozon (Young & Beautiful, Potiche) joins that impressive club of filmmakers with The New Girlfriend, an ironic, if strangely suspenseful, gender-bending dramedy about self-discovery and self-acceptance that upends some of the basic distinctions in human experience - male and female, straight and gay, friend and lover, mother and father.

The film opens at a funeral.

Claire (Anaïs Demoustier), a shy, self-effacing woman in her late 20s, is eulogizing her best friend Laura (Isild Le Besco), a brash, confident, sexy, young woman who suddenly fell ill and died shortly after giving birth to her first baby.

Ozon skillfully takes us into a seven-minute flashback that traces the adamantine bond of love and friendship that had grown between Claire and Laura since they met as 7-year-old schoolgirls.

Then, the filmmaker takes us on a strange narrative trip to trace the increasingly strange, twisted - yet ultimately triumphant - path Claire and Laura's husband David (Romain Duris) take to recover from her death.

A devastated Claire feels unable to face David or spend time with the baby girl he had with Laura. The newborn's eyes so thoroughly remind her of Laura, Claire tells her husband Gilles (Raphaël Personnaz), that she feels unable to cope.

When she does finally go over to David's house, she finds him dressed in women's clothes. He's been a cross-dresser for years, David confesses, assuring Claire that Laura knew and accepted his predilection.

David speaks of how the baby stops crying only when he puts on some of Laura's clothes or her perfume, insisting that this way he can be both a father and mother to her.

Disgusted, Claire runs out of the house.

Slowly, she and David begin to bond over their memories of Laura and over their shared tastes in women's clothes. In one pivotal scene, Claire takes David to shop for new outfits and she christens his female alter-ego Virginia.

Still grieving, the friends realize that Virginia somehow channels Laura's energy and the love she had for each of them. For David, it's a way to bring Laura back. For Claire, the process reignites sexual desires for her late friend that she had never before accepted, much less expressed.

Eventually, as David progresses through the mourning process, Virginia rises out of Laura's shadow to become her own woman. For her part, Claire outgrows her dependence on Gilles.

The New Girlfriend treads a fine line between suspense - Claire keeps her budding relationship with Virginia entirely secret - melodrama, and comedy. Exceptionally graceful and accomplished, Ozon's film challenges our received notions of normalcy, intimacy, and love.

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Directed by François Ozon. With Anaïs Demoustier, Romain Duris, Isild Le Besco, Raphaël Personnaz. Distributed by Cohen Media Group. In French with English subtitles.

Running time: 1 hour, 48 mins.

Parent's guide: Rated R (strong sexual content, graphic nudity).

Playing at: Ritz Five.

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