Donna Deitch, director of the groundbreaking lesbian romance Desert Hearts, deftly turns her critical eye toward the erotic thriller with Criminal Passion, and succeeds in making a feminist version of this dog-eared cinematic trope.
There's an admirable effortlessness in her execution. She never waves it in our faces that the lead cop is a woman, but at the same time makes you viscerally feel that Detective Melanie Hudson exists in a man's world...and that it does actually mess with her head. Other characters similarly have their genders flipped from the norms within the genre; plus Melanie works with a queer cop, to boot.
All this doesn't merely serve to give us a few breaths of fresh air, but rather informs the very essence of the film. It hits very differently than your Basic Instincts or Last Seductions. It's a highly enjoyable watch, suffused with great atmosphere and memorable characters. Plotwise it may not be the most original thing you'll watch this month, but I don't think that was the point. It feels like Deitch was attempting to give a genre film her unique feminist touch. But I don't want to minimize its craft. Criminal Passion is both extremely capable and very refreshing filmmaking. I'm gonna watch it a second time.
