A kind of subversive noir in a provocative genre already just that, Intrigo injects further tantalizing unconventional flavor into what may be characterized as the birth of the feminist fatale. And within the intriguing multi-layered, already by definition seductively elusive context of actors playing actors on screen.
Adapted from the work of bestseller Håkan Nesser and directed by Nasser (The Girl Who Played with Fire), Intrigo moves back and forth through time as suddenly widowed Agnes (Carla Juri) is about to lose her palatial home to her elderly deceased spouse's two adult children in no way fond of Carla - who is perceived as a gold digger. The will enables the children to sell the home, and a distraught Agnes lacks the funds to buy it from them.
Mysteriously entering this progressively sinister scenario, is Henny
(Gemma Chan), an affluent housewife who has had close emotional ties to Agnes, when they were both aspiring young actresses. However ruthless competition for a role destroyed their relationship, and while both made seductive moves at the time on Peter (Jamie Sives.) the director casting the parts, Henny later married him.
But now apparently shackled to an unfaithful husband, Henny contemplates murdering him. Though to assure that she not end up the suspect, the seething resentful woman searches for a hired killer. Which leads to an unethusiastic to say the least former friend and subsequent foe, Agnes. But Henny eventually convinces the conflicted Agnes to agree, by offering to provide the desperate woman enough cash to keep her home.
And with both harboring long festering hostility towards Peter as well as one another, Intrigo smoulders with subdued, progressively mounting tension as an exceedingly incendiary cliffhanger that might proceed in a multitude of unanticipated directions. But the dramatic destination that ultimately transpires, shakes up conventions especially regarding notions of female fury and retaliation, even for the subversive teaser expectations of noir.
Prairie Miller
