“Sexuality is one of the great mysteries of humanity.” Or so declares famous, 50-something novelist Charles Saint-Denis, near the beginning of Claude Chabrol’s latest film, A Girl Cut in Two. A bit too much of an on-the-nose of a thesis statement for a film about various crimes of passion? It might have been, if not for the portentousness with which actor Francois Berleand delivers the line, and the distance at which Chabrol places the camera in order to shoot it. Even if Charles’ young, vivacious but sexually naive weather girl mistress Gabrielle (a just-barely grown-up Ludivine Sagnier) accepts each of her lovers words of supposed wisdom at face value, Chabrol doesn’t exactly give the impression that we should.

Gabrielle’s last name translates to “snow”, and the obvious joke seems to be that Charles seems to believe she’s pure as an un-mussed embankment until he starts driving her. But as Charles vacillates between the poles holding up his romantically mopey middle-age––Gabrielle, his work, and a long-standing wife who choses to deny rather than suffer over her “perfect man”’s indiscretions––his young love interest is also being courted by Paul Gaudens, a spoiled scion who won’t take her coy nos for an answer. Gabrielle bounces between the two, always with a wider eye for Charles who, paradoxically but inevitably, only wants her after he’s pushed her away.

The script is transposed from the story of Evelyn Nesbit, the early-20th century it girl whose teenage relationship with an older sexual mentor led to tragedy once she settled with someone more age-appropriate but far crazier. A cursory familiarity with how that real-life story turned out will spoil a few of Girl’s beats, but the constellation of plot points isn’t what’s important here. Though Girl does eventually build up to a murder, there’s no mystery concerning how or why––that crime happens out in the open, while the events that animate it are largely kept discreet. At 78, the living master of the French thriller is less interested in forensics than in the perplexities of violent acts a bit outside the jurisdiction of the French police––those that happen behind closed doors, inspired by the insanity of desire. The joke’s on Charles if he thinks that he, as one who strip-mines human behavior for a living, is closer to cracking the case than anyone else.

A click on the image above will take you to an exclusive clip from A Girl Cut in Two. The movie opens this Friday, August 15 in New York at the IFC Center & Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and will also be available On Demand via IFC in Theaters. It’ll roll out to further cities in the coming weeks.