MOVIE REVIEW : Weak Logic Hurts an Emotionally Strong ‘Olivier’

“Olivier Olivier” has no trouble with what most films find difficult but stumbles over what should be easy. The result is an emotionally powerful piece of work that is unsatisfactory in terms of simple plot logic, a compelling picture marred by a clumsily built frame.

Like writer-director Agnieszka Holland’s previous film, the stranger than fiction “Europa Europa,” “Olivier” (selected theaters) is based on a true story, in this case one that Holland read in a Parisian newspaper in 1984. It is a nightmare set on a little lane in Provence that is in its own way as unnerving as anything they did over on Elm Street.

At first the Duval family, with 11-year-old daughter, Nadine, and her 9-year-old brother, Olivier, seem nothing out of the ordinary. True, mother Elisabeth (Brigitte Rouan) doesn’t even try to conceal her partiality for Olivier, a situation that gets on the nerves not only of Nadine but also of their father, a testy veterinarian named Serge (Francois Cluet). This is not a crisis but a situation that has gone on for years and might well continue that way indefinitely.

Then the unthinkable happens. Olivier sets out on a bicycle ride to his grandmother’s and quite simply disappears. Suddenly, years of resentment come furiously to the surface and the family nearly self-immolates in a firestorm of guilt and recriminations.

Though some of her earlier films have had a sentimental edge to them, Holland’s work is toughness itself here. Her portrait of a family in crisis is pitiless--almost terrifying in its rawness--as is its sense of emotions barely under control, of the kind of hothouse trap a crippled family can become.

All of this, however, turns out to be merely a prologue. Druot (Jean-Francois Stevenin), the original policeman on the case, has never forgotten Olivier though he himself has been transferred to Paris. One night, on a routine raid, he picks up a smart-mouthed 15-year-old hustler (Gregoire Colin) who looks exactly like the lost Olivier.

Druot questions him closely and the boy seems to know all the right answers. Elisabeth comes to Paris and embraces the boy as her own and takes him back with her to that same dysfunctional family, where a whole new set of interpersonal dynamics get unnervingly played out.

For the Olivier who returns is and is not like his childhood self. Self-satisfied, amoral, a kind of adolescent devil, he sets off a deeply resentful reaction in his sister (Marina Golovine), who calls him “Baby Jesus” and refuses to believe he is not an impostor.

Helped by Zbigniew Preisner’s unnerving music, sorting out these complex and disconcerting interrelationships is what “Olivier Olivier” (rated R for sexuality and language) does best. What is not nearly so well done is the resolution of the is-he-or-isn’t-he part of the story, a purely mechanical job that is handled in an unnecessarily creaky way.

Because it would have been simple to make that component of “Olivier” more convincing, the suspicion arises that it hasn’t been done because Holland thinks such pedestrian concerns shouldn’t be on anyone’s mind when lofty themes such as the effect of family on personality and the nature of reality are being explored.

Don’t bother with the frame, Holland seems to be saying; it’s the picture that’s important. Which may very well be true, but it’s natural to focus on the setting if it’s out of whack, and it’s a shame that a writer-director who in many ways understands human nature so thoroughly should have fallen down in this crucial respect.

‘Olivier Olivier’

Francois Cluet: Dr. Serge Duval

Brigitte Rouan: Elisabeth Duval

Jean-Francois Stevenin: Police Officer Druot

Gregoire Colin: Olivier

Marina Golovine: Nadine

Frederic Quiring: Marcel

Released by Sony Pictures Classics. Director Agnieszka Holland. Producer Marie-Laure Reyre. Screenplay Agnieszka Holland. Adaptation Agnieszka Holland, Yves Lapointe. Cinematographer Bernard Zitzermann. Editor Isabelle Lorente. Costumes Ewa Biejat. Music Zbigniew Preisner. Art director Helene Bourgy. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (sexuality and language).