Deconstructing "Femme Fatale"

Thomas Kando

1995: International con artist/thief Laure Ash helps pull off a diamond robbery in Cannes during the annual film festival. She double-crosses her partners-in-crime (the evil black guy and his accomplices) and makes off with the diamonds to Paris where she accidentally assumes the identity of a distraught woman who commits suicide, and then she leaves the country. On the airplane to America, Laure meets millionaire and future US ambassador to Paris Peter Coyote, whom she marries. And then, the mystery begins:Scenario One, 1995: shown early in the movie: the beautiful blonde Laure is taking a bath in her apartment. A despondent brunette enters the apartment and starts committing suicide. Laure lets the brunette kill herself. That’s how she is able to assume the girl’s identity, go to America, meet and marry Peter Coyote and do all the bad things which follow, namely:

2002: Seven years later, Laure (now called Lily Watts) returns to Paris as the wife of the new American ambassador to France (Peter Coyote) where a certain Nicolas Barto (Antonio Banderas), a Spanish photographer, takes her picture. This is bad, because as a result her former partners-in-crime, still looking for her, will find her. Therefore, she decides to entrap Barto, staging that he kidnaps her for a $10 million ransom from her millionaire-ambassador husband. In reality, she aims to kill Barto, collect the $10 million and skip out on her husband whom she cannot stand, because she is still very evil. But things go haywire, her former partners-in-crime show up, there is a shootout and she is dumped into the Seine to drown.

What’s confusing is that (1) the despondent girl whom Laure allows to commit suicide in her apartment in 1995 is another Laure - i.e. she is also played by Rebecca Romijn. And (2) there is another French brunette in the plot, who might or might not be this same girl. This (second?) brunette seems to be another diamond thief and crime partner of Laure’s. She helped Laura double-cross the other crime-partners (the ones who are really bad) Early on in the film, these guys come after this brunette, and she dies.

Scenario Two, 1995: shown at the end of the movie: blonde Laure prevents the brunette from killing herself, telling her that she is her “guardian angel,” and instead, she sends her off to America to clean up her life. Laure herself stays in Paris.
We now learn that all the bad things in scenario One are only things which Laure dreamed while in the bathtub. They all would have happened if Laure had allowed the despondent brunette to kill herself. However, she talked her out of it and gave the girl her air ticket to America.

2002: Laure has been in Paris all along, as has her female accomplice. Their double-crossed partners-in-crime finally catch up with them, but this time Laura’s accomplice does not die - instead the bad guys do. The two girls get to keep the stolen $4 million diamond bra, plus Laure meets Barto for the first time, and they like each other right away, and they will probably be happily in love...
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