Not to be confused with the late Donald Cammell's bizarre thriller which bears the same title, writer/director Sébastien Lifshitz's Wild Side explores the world of a transsexual prostitute Stephanie (Stephanie Michelini). Returning from Paris to the provinces after a 15 year absence to look after her dying mother, Stephanie is visited by her male lovers - Russian army deserter Mikhail (Edourard Nikitine) and French Arab hustler Djamel (Yasmine Belmadi) - and remembers her own childhood when she was a boy.
Lifshitz and his co-screenwriter Stephane Bouquet treat the ménage-à -trois between Stephanie, Mikhail and Djamel with sympathy and respect, viewing the trio as a surrogate family unit, who deeply love one another. The film also doesn't glamorise the business of selling one's body for sex with strangers, in the way that it stresses the joylessness and monotony of these transactions, whilst Agnes Godard's cinematography impressively captures the sparse landscapes of the Northern French countryside.
"STRANGELY SUBDUED AND AT TIMES DREARY"
Yet despite Wild Side's creditable intentions, it's a strangely subdued and at times dreary work. Michelini remains a dignified but emotionally remote protagonist, the flashback structure proves more confusing than enlightening, and the fact that Mikhail barely speaks a word of French leads to a number of tedious scenes in which he struggles to communicate with his girlfriend and her terminally ill mum.
In a rare moment of genuine drama, he insists that Stephanie talk in her man's voice, but this desire for 'normality' is quickly forgotten in Lifshitz's drive to provide an affirmative ending for his socially marginalised characters.
In French with English subtitles.
Wild Side (2005)
