David Ives' tricksy Broadway play about a woman auditioning for a role in a play is made an even more tricksy film by director Roman Polanski who casts his doppleganger Mathieu Almaric as Thomas, the writer of the play, and his wife Emmanuelle Seigner as Vanda, the woman auditioning, a move which adds an extra layer of complexity to the two-character story that, as Vanda and Thomas do a readthrough of the script together, plays on ideas of dominance and submission between director and actor, Vanda and Thomas, the play's Vanda and Severin, the goddess Venus and Severin, Venus and Thomas, woman and man, and here, real-life husband and wife, and it is just a shame all this highbrow carry-on ends feeling so inconsequential.
★★★☆☆
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