Any doubts that the creepy cuteness of Amélie automaton Audrey Tautou conceals a heart of malignant banality should end after her performance in this sour, gimmicky gimcrack from first-time director Laetitia Colombani. Tautou’s Angélique is an aspiring artist with a vapid grin. While housesitting for rich friends, she falls for Loïc (Samuel Le Bihan of Le pacte des loups), the handsome heart surgeon next door. Alas, he’s married! But the wife is so pregnant, so clingy, she can’t possibly make him happy — and so the affair progresses from ecstasy to agony to cuts and contusions and doesn’t end well.

At least, that’s her side of the story. What’s his (i.e., the truth)? Colombani rewinds the film in the middle and replays it with the point of view reversed and all the omissions filled in, and we find out not only that Angélique wasn’t such a good girl after all but that this movie is bad. As in evil: it makes Fatal Attraction look like a textbook study in women’s dignity and empowerment. Audrey, we love you not. In French with English subtitles. (92 minutes)