Review: 'The Origin of Evil' is a twisted thriller with some sharp 'Succession'-style commentary on the super-rich

The eccentric behavior of the very rich — and the lengths some people will go to join or fleece them — is at the heart of “The Origin of Evil,” a deliciously twisted, and twisty, French/Canadian thriller.

We’re introduced to our main character, a woman who goes by the male name Stéphane (Laure Calamy), at a crisis point. She has a smelly job packaging sardines in a cannery. She’s got a girlfriend (Suzanne Clément) in prison, who sometimes doesn’t come out when she visits. And her landlady is about to kick her out, because the landlady’s daughter is moving back into her room.

With seemingly nowhere to go, she calls the one number she thinks might be able to help: Serge (Jacques Weber), the father who abandoned Stéphane as a baby. Serge is a billionaire, having built up a fortune in hospitality. Will he hospitable to a long-lost daughter?

She gets an invite to Serge’s villa on a remote island (the movie was shot in western France). Serge introduces himself as a lover of many women over his life — and everyone besides him in the villa is a woman: Louise (Dominique Blanc), Serge’s shopaholic wife; George (Doria Tillier), Serge and Louise’s daughter, who runs the family businesses; Jeanne (Céleste Brunnquell), George’s teen daughter, who snaps photos and wants to go to art school far away from her family; and Agnès (Véronique Ruggia Saura), the family’s stern housekeeper.

Each of these women take a look at their new visitor and try to figure out what she wants. She observes them, and notices they each have their claws into Serge, who has been recovering from a stroke and often seems on the verge of another one. 

But as writer-director Sébastien Marnier unfolds this complex and sometimes acidly comic story, we learn everyone has some big secrets — particularly our main character.

Marnier mines humor from the oddball behavior of these rich women — like Louise’s obsession with home shopping — and the “Succession”-like maneuvering around Serge’s bouts of ill health. And when the thriller elements kick in, he handles the Agatha Christie-style reveals, the crosses and double-crosses, masterfully.

The highlights in the ensemble cast include Weber as the volatile patriarch and Ruggia Saura as the officious servant. But it’s Calamy, subtly shifting from wry observer to central mover in this sly thriller, who gives “The Origin of Evil” its sting. 

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‘The Origin of Evil’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, September 22, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City), Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy), AMC West Jordan 12, Megaplex 20 at The District (South Jordan), Megaplex Thanksgiving Point (Lehi) and Megaplex at Legacy Crossing (Centerville). Rated R for language, nudity, some sexual content and violence. Running time: 123 minutes; in French with subtitles.