The Ring Finger - DVD Review
By Cyril Pearl -- Video Business, 6/15/2009
STRAND
Street: July 21
Prebook: June 23
> Unsettling French drama starring Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko.
A moody, erotic drama laced with thriller elements, 2005’s The Ring Finger stars Olga Kurylenko (a newly minted James Bond babe who starred in last year’s Quantum of Solace) as a young woman who loses her job at a lemonade bottling plant and takes on a new secretarial position for a strange scientist (Marc Barbe) who specializes in the preservation of personal mementos—be they bones, inanimate objects or even intense emotions. And he even has some ideas concerning the “preservation” of Ms. Kurylenko, which leads to some memorably fetishistic erotic sequences. Adapted from a Japanese novel and directed by Diane Bertrand, The Ring Finger is well-acted and initially involving, but it loses steam as it moves on, its vague ideas never really coalescing by the time the climax roles around.
Shelf Talk: Of course, the primary appeal here is Ms. Kurylenko, in her screen debut. This is not lost on distributor Strand Releasing, who emblazoned the box art with a sexy shot of the leading lady and the credit “Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace).” Francophiles also might consider this one, though there are a lot of French titles to choose from as of late. The moody soundtrack by Beth Gibbons of British trip-hop band Portishead is sure to interest some.
Foreign-language drama, color, R (mature themes, sexual situations, nudity), 110 min., DVD $27.99, French with English subtitles
Extras: none
Director: Diane Bertrand
First Run: L Int’l., 2005, NA
