There was a time when I feared that François Ozon was losing his weirdness, becoming too mainstream. He's without question lost the weirdness of his earlier films, but Une nouvelle amie is refreshingly mischievous, delving into the nature of gender, probing the mixed sexualities which we force ourselves to deny by retreating horrified into our binary sexual shells. As such, yes, it has to be said that Ozon is being transgressive here.
David (Romain Duris)'s wife Laura (Isild Le Besco) has died and left him with a baby. Laura had been the best friend of Claire (Anaïs Demoustier) since childhood, they were bloodsisters, did everything together, and now Claire is gutted. It's her duty to see that David and the baby are doing all right, and she frequently visits them. But one day she surprises David by walking in and finding him feeding the baby with a bottle and dressed in women's clothes. Of course she's shocked and even though David says it's to get the baby used to a woman's presence, she still thinks he's a pervert. And obviously she never says anything of this to her husband Gilles (Raphaël Personnaz).
But she soon gets used to the idea, even welcomes it, gives David tips on how to use make-up: he's actually been doing this for years, but of course still makes mistakes. She calls the female David Virginia, and they even go out together, have meals, shop for clothes together, as Claire and Virginia. And something odd is happening to Claire, she mentally revisits her youth, sees the lesbian opportunities of her relationship with Laura, and even gets annoyed when David comes to meet her rather than Virginia. She gets annoyed on another occasion when she's at the cinema with Virginia and the man next to Virginia – actually François Ozon himself – starts touching 'her' up! She forces them to leave, tells him he's gay, but he just says he enjoyed it because it made him feel like a woman.
The relationship continues, Claire is spending more and more time with David and the baby, she's making lies to Gilles, and of course they (very briefly) end up in bed although nothing happens because Claire springs out of bed when she realises Virginia is a man. Then tragedy seems to occur when David has an accident and is in a coma. He only recovers when Claire dresses him as Virginia.
The film ends with a flash forward seven years to the baby now a child, and the happy couple: Claire and Virginia. Rivetting.
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