Review: Committed performances sell 'Deerskin,' a trippy thriller that tracks one man's killer obsession with fringe

Clothes make the man, but what do they make him into? That’s the question posed by French writer-director Quentin Dupieux’s blood-soaked thriller “Deerskin.”

The man here is Georges, played by Oscar winner Jean Dujardin (“The Artist”). Georges is apparently in full-blown midlife crisis, having left his wife and taken 7,500 euros out of their bank account to buy a vintage deerskin jacket. The guy who sells him the jacket (played by Albert Delpy, father of Julie Delpy) throws in a digital camera as part of the deal.

Georges checks into an inn, and starts admiring himself and his new jacket in the mirror. He gets out the camera, and starts shooting footage of himself and the jacket. In that moment, Georges decides on the purpose of his new life: To become a filmmaker.

When his wife puts a block on their bank accounts, Georges scrambles to find an alternate source of money. He finds it in Denise (Adèle Haenel), a bartender who dreams of being a film editor. (For practice, she recut “Pulp Fiction” in chronological order, with unsatisfying results.) Georges signs her on as his editor, on the conditions that she bankroll the film until his “producers” secure funding, and that she never again wear a jacket.

This is where Georges’ other dream takes over: To be the only person in the world to wear a jacket. His jacket — who starts talking back, in Georges’ voice — has its own dream, which is to be the only jacket in the world. How they achieve that shared dream takes a disturbing and bloody path into crime.

Dupieux — who famously built an entire movie, 2010’s “Rubber,” around a sentient, telekinetic truck tire — creates a darkly comic story around Georges’ obsession and hubris, as he turns his pursuit of the perfect outfit into a murderous art project. (It’s deliciously self-referential that Dupieux makes such a self-absorbed man into a movie director.) Dupieux is judicious in depicting onscreen carnage, and some of the scariest moments happen outside the camera’s view.

Dujardin gives a compelling performance as Georges, and is especially chilling when Georges begins talking to himself, in his own voice and in the voice of the jacket. But Haenel is the wild card here; as she did in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” Haenel begins with a character who we meet as just a pretty face, but whose passion and ambition show a lot more going on beneath the surface.

If there’s a weakness in “Deerskin,” it’s an underwhelming final payoff — but, considering how Dupieux’s fascinating set-up paints the movie into a corner, perhaps no ending would have worked.

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‘Deerskin’

★★★

Begins streaming on Friday, May 1, on various platforms, including the SLFS@Home portal. Not rated, but probably R for strong violence and language. Running time: 77 minutes; in French, with subtitles.