Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

Number One Fan

(Elle l'adore, France, 2014)

The title translates as “She Loves It.” We have been lucky lately in stumbling across several small movies that surprised me. Surprise is such a rare thing in movies these days that I treasure them like a miser. This is one. Sandrine Kinberlain plays Muriel, a superfan, someone who pretty much devotes her life to obsessing over a super-pop singer, Vincent LaCroix, played by Laurent Lafitte. Lacroix gets in an argument with his tempestuous girlfriend, she trips, hits her head, and dies. It is a bona fide accident, no one’s fault, but he know the kind of scandal this sort of superstar tragedy will entail, and he might very well be tried for murder.

Enter poor little star struck Muriel, through a series of coincidences. He persuades her to help him dispose of the body. Naturally, she is up for this … at first. But as things keep going awry in funny ways, she begins to wonder if she is being played for a chump. (Ya think?) It gets crazier and crazier and funnier and funnier, and each plot development is not what I saw coming at all. Very highly recommended.