The Other Laurens

Jade Laurens’ family home in Perpignan looks like the White House (in real life, the Chateau de Rastignac is a considered a source of inspiration for our official presidential residence) and her Uncle Gabriel is the spitting image of his twin brother, her late father Francois. However, both sets of doppelgängers are very different on the inside. Francois always had all the luck, because he was the older brother, by mere minutes. Nevertheless, now that her father is dead, Jade thinks her uncle should investigate, since he is a private detective. Reluctantly, he uncovers a good deal of dirty family laundry in Claude Schmitz’s The Other Laurens, which opens Friday in theaters.

Gabriel Laurens specializes in grubby divorces and background checks. Francois took the woman he loved, but Gabriel outlived them both, leaving him to deal with his mother’s death alone, shortly after his brother’s accidental demise. Of course, his niece does not believe it was an accident and the bikers that constantly tail her understandably pique Laurens’ own suspicion.

The same goes for his brother’s less than bereft American widow, Shelby, who was wife #2. She seems to be tight with the biker posse that claims to be Jade’s guardian [Hell’s] angels. Something is definitely afoot, but the family connections clearly cloud the detective’s judgment. He also tends to freak out the Perpignan locals, considering he is such a dead-ringer for his brother, so to speak.

Twists ensue (some of which viewers might anticipate), but Schmitz’s feverish, neon-lit noir is still a good deal of fun. You have plenty of classic elements, starting with the Cain and Abel twins. Olivier Rabourdin is appropriately rumpled and degenerate as Uncle Gabriel. He also has convincingly dysfunctional but potent familial chemistry Louise Leroy as Jade, which is important, because the film really would not make sense without it.

Perhaps even more importantly for noir genre fans, Kate Moran is truly a spectacular femme fatale as the scheming widow. Edwin Gaffney also stirs things up considerably as her ex-military friend Scott, whom Shelby calls in as backup. He seems good-natured, but Gaffney nicely hints at buried resentments that probably represent potential violence.

From Chateau de Rastignac’s stately architecture and grounds to Florian Berutti’s eye-popping cinematography, The Other Laurens is a consistently good-looking film. The principal performances are also as colorful the visuals, which is why the film works so well. Highly recommended for film noir fans, The Other Laurens opens this Friday (8/23) at the Lower Manhattan Alamo Drafthouse and releases the following Tuesday (8/27) on VOD.