The plot of “Deerskin” could fit on a postage stamp, but the titular obsession of its antihero only grows with every scene. Initially, when we accompany Georges (Jean Dujardin) as he buys a woefully unflattering vintage suede jacket from a private seller, his near-erotic delight in the fringed relic seems rather sweet. By the end, though, we suspect that Georges’s love for animal hide conceals a loathing for his own.
A demented fetish comedy that escalates to startlingly nonchalant violence, “Deerskin” (written and directed by Quentin Dupieux) flickers tantalizingly between awful and awesome. In the first category is Georges’s irrational quest to ensure that his beloved jacket be the only one left in the world; in the second is his sly dexterity in enlisting help to achieve this deranged goal. Pathetic and middle-aged, with a spreading middle and shrinking cash reserves (“You no longer exist,” his wife snaps during a phone call, locking him out of their shared bank account), he settles in a remote Alpine hotel using his wedding ring as security.
As luck would have it, the seller of the jacket has included a small video camera. Passing himself off as a filmmaker, Georges cons a local bartender, Denise (a splendid Adèle Haenel), into lending him money to finish his scriptless project. An aspiring editor and willing accomplice, Denise is impressed with the raw footage of Georges persuading hastily hired would-be actors to remove their coats, which he then destroys. Sensing genius, she eggs him on, pushing him to perform more outrageous acts while helping augment his suede wardrobe with boots, pants and gloves. The hat he steals for himself — from a corpse.
For a long while, “Deerskin” idles affably in first gear, but its guilelessness is a ruse. As Georges’s compulsion to film his exploits grows, so does his cunning, the camera an excuse to fully indulge his psychosis. And as the movie’s tone flips from silly to shocking, from love story — albeit between a man and his coat — to horror, the mostly lighthearted images (the cinematography is also by Dupieux) turn sporadically sinister.
Like “Rubber,” Dupieux’s 2011 tale of a homicidal tire, “Deerskin” is slight and forcefully eccentric. As with Georges’s personality, audiences will be split: The movie’s dive into one lonely man’s lunacy isn’t entirely successful. Yet Dujardin’s commitment to his batty character is unflinching. Gazing admiringly at his outfit in the mirror, Georges can’t get over his “killer style” — a self-compliment he will, perhaps unknowingly, soon be taking all too literally.
Deerskin
Not rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 17 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
