The film opens on a vague man. His arm is around a little girl’s shoulder. He looks up to his sister (Jessica Lange) and declares “Her mother is dead. You’re her aunt.” And hands his child over to her.
So the child lives in the outskirts of Paris with Jessica Lange and her son, a freaky looking kid who coughs through the night and looks like he’ll die of consumption, except he doesn’t. He grows up. And so does she.
As adults they become the freaky cousin Camille (Tom Felton) and that little girl becomes the beautiful Therese(Elizabeth Olsen). Incest is best according to Lange, so the ‘kissing cousins’ are forced to wed, and then move to Paris.
Enter Laurent (Oscar Issac) a hot French painter who speaks dialog from the soul that ignites Therese. He’s full of creative risk but he’s also full of sexual risk and the two begin a torrid affair full of all the ‘escape’ young Therese has long desired.
But how far can escape take you and when can conscious kick in? And what if the freaky Addams family friends, one who runs a morgue figures it out? These are the dark questions addressed in this psychological thriller with a pedigree. ♔ ♕ ♚