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Allure is another one of those films where I’m going to be out of step with a lot of people because when I checked IMDB, it had a score of around 4.6/10. They must have clearly been watching a different movie, since this is a great drama.
House cleaner Laura (Evan Rachel Wood) comes across 16-year-old Eva (Julia Sarah Stone) while attending to her mother’s abode, and, early on, Laura’s clearly attracted to Eva, and in ways which would 99% get your collar felt by the police, she acts on these, leaving her young charge in a situation to which she doesn’t know how to respond, particularly when Laura shows she has strange desires in the ways of the flesh…
At times, Laura feels like an impetuous teenager, and angry if she doesn’t get her own way. She’s a very selfish woman, who wants everything her way, even if it’s to the detriment of others and their feelings, regardless of how much pain it causes. There’s clearly an element of control as she invites Eva into her flat, but at the same time, she looks like she feels *out of* control at the situation with the girl staying with her.
A wonderful new find in Ms Stone, Eva has the perfect frailty of someone of young years, who hasn’t lived enough life experience to really know whether or not she should be getting into the situation in which she finds herself.
It’s certainly an illicit relationship, since Laura is clearly approaching 30, so almost twice Eva’s age, and Al -lure beings us first-rate performances from the two female leads with fantastic chemistry between them.
Allure is always at its best when the two leads are onscreen together, and both leads do put on stellar performances, but overall, I couldn’t completely engage with both main characters *all* the way through.
By the end of the film, it leaves you wishing you could learn what happens next with the characters, even if you can guess some of that. There’s still at least one element left unanswered. I’ll pose that question in the spoiler bit below.
The film has a downbeat, but complementary piano score, but also a very strange widescreen aspect ratio of 2.12:1, which I don’t think I’ve ever come across before, and I’ve been an advocate of films in their original widescreen ratio ever since I was young and first realised what I was missing.
Allure is released in cinemas on May 18th, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but click on the poster for the full-size image.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 105 minutes
Studio: Eureka Entertainment Ltd
Year: 2018
Format: 2.21:1 (ARRI Rental ALEXA 65, Prime 65 Lenses)
Released: May 18th 2018
Rating: 8/10
Directors: Carlos Sanchez and Jason Sanchez
Producers: Luc Déry and Kim McCraw
Screenplay: Carlos Sanchez and Jason Sanchez
Music: Olivier Alary
Cast:
Laura Drake: Evan Rachel Wood
Eva: Julia Sarah Stone
William: Denis O’Hare
Nancy: Maxim Roy
Benjamin: Joe Cobden
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.