Post Mortem

Perhaps it's a formal conceit, an overriding subtlety, that the first hour of this movie plays like a sub-standard TV thriller. For, after lulling us into contemptuous familiarity, the writer/director in effect begins the picture all over again, but this time with a wallop. Single mom Linda allows herself to turn tricks for money - stealing the customer's wallet at the earliest opportunity. She gets in over her head, however, and winds up in the morgue, where creepy Art Garfunkel-type Arcand falls in love at first sight. You could say what happens next is tasteless, or risible, or provocative (or all three), but it certainly gives the movie a third act when it seemed to be DOA.