Parallel Tales

Isabelle Huppert plays a voyeurist author in this intriguing saga from Asghar Farhadi (The Past; A Separation) that’s loosely based on Dekalog VI from Krzysztof Kieslowski. The Paris-set film from the Iranian director brings together multiple characters in two separate stories: one is the tawdry novel that Sylvie (Huppert) is writing, inspired by the strangers who work across the street from her: sound recordists who in real life are called Nita (Virginie Efira), Nicolas (Vincent Cassel) and Theo (Pierre Niney). While she imagines a sordid love triangle, a parallel narrative shows what they are really up to, which is less dramatic – initially, at least. 

With strong performances from the cast, it’s an interesting take on curiosity and artistry, somewhat overcomplicated by the introduction of Adam (Adam Bessa), who is hired to work for Sylvie after helping her niece on the subway. In a risky move, he decides to share Sylvie’s discarded manuscript with the very person she’s been spying on: Nita. Keen to impress her, he pretends it’s his own work, but it is clear she’s the very subject of the story. When the book is also read by her colleagues, they react to the unsettling flight of fancy on the page, and life begins to imitate art. 

Huppert is delightfully rude to everyone

It’s here that the film falls victim to the very problem pointed out by Sylvie’s publisher (an amusing cameo from Catherine Deneuve): she feels that Sylvie’s characters behave in a way that isn’t convincing in the modern age. Nita, for example, seems oddly unconcerned about being stalked by Adam, even when it appears that he has been watching her from across the street and writing steamy stories about her. It’s tempting to suggest that co-writers (and brothers) Asghar and Saeed Farhadi do not have a handle on the realities of being a woman; but the male characters also make sudden, odd choices without sufficient characterisation to back it up.

And yet, there is something watchable about this melodrama in which shocking events force others into being, and in which Huppert is delightfully rude to everyone in a clever way as this literary fraud plays out. This also provokes thought about truth, authorship and ethical gray areas: Adam may have chased a thief and retrieved a wallet on the subway, but that doesn’t make him heroic or even trustworthy. Despite coming in at 140 minutes, this Cannes contender has enough drama and dark humour to entertain as well as frustrate, although its hopes of winning the Palme d’Or will be confined to another universe.

Parallel Lives premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.