Teresa Reviews The Mirror Crack’d (2017)

Teresa reviews The Mirror Crack’d (2017) (Le miroir se brisa) from the French “Little Murders of Agatha Christie,” and thought it was surprisingly good and it gives Margo Bence her moment in the spotlight.

(c)2023 by Teresa Peschel

Fidelity to text: 4 poisoned cocktails

Despite adding our threesome and subtracting most of the novel’s cast, you’ll recognize every beat.

Quality of film: 4 poisoned cocktails

Surprisingly good. The plot held together. Best of all, Margo Bence could say what she really felt.

Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.

Also, follow Teresa’s discussion of these movie on her podcast.

Margo Bence (Fred) is a difficult person for Hollywood to portray. She’s an important character in the novel, not just another red herring. Marina Gregg did her and her siblings real, lasting damage when she adopted them and then threw them away when they were no longer needed for her self-image. Everything that happened to Margo and her siblings proves that if you’re a star in Hollywood, the rules of normal human decency don’t apply. Kids are props. Their needs are unimportant. They are to be used and when no longer needed, to be discarded.

Margo’s very existence demonstrates that Marina Gregg, movie star, is a selfish narcissistic sociopath. She’s typical for plenty of people in the movie and TV industry. Nice people don’t last in that business, not when your entourage is constantly justifying every piece of nastiness you commit. When you’re routinely told your shit doesn’t stink, eventually you believe it, particularly when the consequences of your actions are carefully kept from you. Think of this as a subset of “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It doesn’t matter how you treat people because you, dear movie star, are so special your needs come first and if that harms someone? So what? They are nothing and you are everything.

I’ve already watched four adaptations. In each one, Margo is handled differently but she never says what she says in the novel. Never. She ends up on the cutting room floor and never appears at all (1980). She gets a few scenes and is disappeared when she might speak her truth and embarrass Marina Gregg and by extension, the industry (1992 and 2010). She gets to speak but she’s forced to say she forgives Marina Gregg even though what you see onscreen when she and her siblings are dragged away reveals she might feel differently (Japanese 2018). She gets siblings in the Japanese film too. No other version admits their existence.

But here, in Les Petits, a series not known for fidelity to the source material, Margo Bence speaks. And, she gets a scene she didn’t in the novel. She gets to confront Marina Gregg over her cruelty. Even better, this version then shows Marina Gregg’s core selfishness when she tries to use Margo to escape justice. She’s just been reunited with her long-lost daughter! Doesn’t that matter more than committing two murders and framing her husband?

But Laurence doesn’t accept Marina Gregg’s specialness. The law still applies. Margo does not forgive her. They know better. Scorpions will always sting. It’s their nature.

So lets get to our film!

Like all versions of The Mirror Crack’d, there’s a film within a film. This time instead of a costume drama about a glamorous queen, Blanche Dulac (Marina Gregg) is making her comeback in what looks like a loose noir rehash of the events leading to Lana Turner’s notorious murder trial. Watching Blanche’s scenes with the much younger Sylvia Franco (Lola Brewster) about bringing that man into their household and then having to flee after his murder made me instantly think of it and the timing would have been about right for the show.

You’ve forgotten? In 1958, Lana’s 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane, stabbed Lana’s lover, Johnny Stompanato to death. Cheryl claimed she was protecting her mother from Johnny’s abusive attack. The jury agreed and declared it was justifiable homicide. Unlike Marina Gregg, Lana stood by her daughter every step of the way.

Costar Sylvia is having an affair with Marc Borel (Jason Rudd), Blanche’s husband and director. Blanche knows. We meet quack doctor, Jacques Mentchikoff (a loose mix of multiple characters) who keeps Blanche calm with his special “herbal” drug mixture. Dr. Mentchikoff also, as we eventually discover, treats Blanche and Marc’s hidden, severely handicapped son.

It wouldn’t do for her image of perfection to admit the boy’s existence.

Then Blanche’s new hand double shows up. She’s Simone Maupin (Heather Badcock) and she’s a huge fan, gushing all over Blanche. One cocktail later, Simone is dead. Who could have done this? Especially when it turns out that Blanche had earlier received a threatening letter?

Laurence isn’t performing at his best, causing delays in the case. He just learned that his would-be fiancée, Dr Euphrasie Maillol, died in a plane crash. Overjoyed that she was returning to France, he was ready to propose. Instead, he’s torn apart by grief. He’s not given a single day of bereavement leave nor does he ask. Marlène, Avril, and Glissant (the new pathologist) cover for Laurence. Avril asks leading questions and pokes into corners. Avril talks Glissant into testing the contents of Simone’s wine glass and steals a bottle of Mentchikoff’s “herbal” remedy, proving the doc’s quack remedy killed Simone.

His remedy is, technically, herbal in nature. It’s a mixture of opium, marijuana, lavender, and St. John’s wort. They’re all plants. But when Mentchikoff observes Laurence’s struggles with overpowering and debilitating grief, he prescribes it to Laurence, worsening his problems.

Meanwhile, Fred shows up. She’s the new studio photographer and she’s constantly around taking pictures of Blanche. She takes a shine to Avril, leading to the two waking up in bed together. Both Laurence and Mentchikoff correctly diagnose the relationship and are appalled.

Fred eventually confesses to Avril that she’s Blanche’s abandoned daughter. When Blanche no longer wanted her, having become pregnant with a “real” child, she was dumped in a series of expensive boarding schools with zero contact. Fred is disappointed that Blanche never recognizes her.

It also turns out that Fred lied to Avril. She wasn’t accidentally assigned to the job of studio photographer. She actively sought it, so she could see Blanche again.

When Dr. Mentchikoff gets Laurence to reenact the fatal poisoning, he dies from methanol in his asthma inhaler. Photographers use methanol, Fred has the motive to murder Blanche, and she’s arrested.

Marlène ends up in Blanche’s house as her new hand double and a sort of bodyguard. They become friendly, right up to the moment when Marlène makes friends with Blanche’s crazy son hidden in the attics.

Once again, Blanche’s image is more important than Marlène’s connection with her son or her kindness. But Marlène makes the important discovery that the threatening letter is, word for word, a copy from one of Blanche’s films. A film written by her husband, Marc, who’s auditioning her replacement. He becomes the newest suspect.

With Laurence still largely out of commission, Avril makes the discovery (using Fred’s photograph proof sheets) that Simone showed Blanche something when they met. Moments later, she was dead. Simone’s son gets another interview and you see a boy grieving for a mother who loved him dearly.

At last, all is revealed. Blanche was the mastermind, albeit on the spur of the moment. Simone revealed who was behind her son’s disabilities but I guarantee you that like every other version of Heather Badcock, Simone would have been devastated to learn that she’d harmed her idol.

It’s at that point that Blanche learns that Fred is her abandoned daughter. She swings instantly into the heartrending role of desperate mother. But Margo, er, I mean Fred, refuses to believe one lying word.

Finally. Justice is served to Fred and through her, to the other versions of Margo Bence.