Femme Fatale (film) - Plot

Plot

Mercenary thief Laure Ash (Rebecca Romijn) participates in a diamond heist in Cannes. The plan is for Laure to steal valuable diamonds from the ensemble of a female attendant named Veronica (Rie Rasmussen) while in the middle of seducing her, during which her accomplices "Black Tie" (Eriq Ebouaney) and Racine (Édouard Montrouge) provide various support. However, Laure instead double-crosses her accomplices and escapes to Paris with the diamonds. In Paris, a series of events causes Laure to be mistaken for her own doppelgänger, a missing Parisian woman named "Lily" (also portrayed by Romijn) who had recently disappeared. While Laure luxuriates in a tub in Lily's home, the real Lily returns and commits suicide while Laure secretly watches, leaving Laure the opportunity to take her identity for good and leave the country to America.

Seven years later, Laure (in her identity as "Lily") resurfaces in Paris as the wife of Bruce Watts, the new American ambassador to France (Peter Coyote). After arriving in France, a Spanish paparazzo named Nicolas Bardo (Antonio Banderas) takes her picture. The picture is displayed around Paris, and Black Tie spots Bardo's photo while in the middle of killing Veronica by throwing her into the path of a speeding truck. With Laure exposed to her vengeful ex-accomplices, she decides to frame Bardo for her own (staged) kidnapping. Bardo is further manipulated by Laure into following through with the "kidnapping", and in the process, begin a sexual relationship. The pair eventually meet with Bruce for an exchange, however, Bardo has a crisis of conscience at the last moment and sabotages the scheme. In retaliation, Laure executes both Bardo and Bruce, only to be surprised by her ex-accomplices afterward, whom promptly throw Laure off a bridge to her seeming death.

In an extended twist ending, the entirety of the movie's events after Laure enters the tub in Lily's home are revealed to be a dream. Laure spies Lily entering the home as before, but this time stops her from committing suicide. Seven years later, Laure and Veronica, who is revealed to have been Laure's partner all along, chat about the success of their diamond caper. Black Tie and Racine arrive seeking revenge, but they are killed by the same truck that killed Veronica in Laure's dream. Bardo, witnessing all these events, introduces himself to Laure, swearing that he has met her before, with Laure replying "Only in my dreams".

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