The Netflix original “The Most Assassinated Woman in the World,” released last Friday, is a bland rehashing of the murder mystery genre, the thematic conceit being the altogether lack of mystery involved (there’s only one possible suspect and guess what happens in the end!). “Most Assassinated” feels like one of those movies that Netflix green-lighted to fill a quota for main menu titles rather than an attempt at expanding the universe of human expression. I honestly don’t know how the script just didn’t end up as an episode of “Bones” eight years ago.
The “Most Assassinated,” (yet very much still alive) woman at the center of the film, Paula Maxa (Anna Mouglalis, “Baron noir”), is a stage actress famous for her gory, pantomimed deaths. In fact, the troupe she stars in, and the theater that houses them all, specializes on her nightly demises, packing the theater wall to wall six days a week for a series of bloody scenes with little to no plot beyond the stabbing, hanging, crushing and lashing of that particular evening. And the audience only really wants to see the gore, the theater’s whole business model riding on the draw of perversion for droves of thrill-stymied Parisians. In this, “Most Assassinated” happens upon a fairly interesting quandary, though it’s never fleshed out; the film half-posits the question of, one, who is more morally reprehensible, the ones killing each other on stage, or the hoards of spectators returning time and time to see it? And two, what would the effect of such a theatrical institution have on a city? Is it a pressure-release valve that could give someone the outlet they need to avoid acting out the perversions on their own? Or is it a motivating, exemplifying danger that only puts the city at higher risk?
Yet instead of forging on in this more interesting direction, “Most Assassinated” falls back into a dull murder mystery type without enough suspects or possibilities for any of the crimes shown to really grab the attention. Basically, everything wrong that happens to the actress Maxa is perpetrated by one, polio-stricken, rebuked-courter from Maxa’s past — an older man named Jean. The pathos of “Most Assassinated” is set up to come from Maxa’s figurative perch just out of reach of his dangerous clutches, only one false step away from his murderous grasp. It fails, however, to give any dimension to the two of them or to the relationship they once had. His motives are never understood past his perverse desire to watch her die, making the cat and mouse chase that is the second two-thirds of the movie a little dry to watch.
The issues at the core of “Most Assassinated” stem mostly from the characters’ lack of character. The film is over-saturated by characters that don’t seem to have any inclinations past what they quip about to each other on screen. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if it were just the peripheral characters who lacked any dimension, but even Maxa herself is missing any intrigue behind her actions. Perhaps a woman on the run for her life doesn’t need a grand underlying philosophy behind the doorway stoops she hides in, but it would be nice to see her choices in allies backed up at all.
Had “Most Assassinated” leaned further into the guts and gore on-stage, incorporating it into theater’s dark underbelly, the film could have been spun into a compelling thriller or horror flick. As it stands, the bloodshed is used as fictitiously in the film as it is used on Paula Maxa’s stage. And of course, all my ponderings on how the film could have been tweaked to go a little further are derivations of the issues first mentioned above — the film lacks a philosophy on the events it puts on screen; it doesn’t try to say anything.
As a conditional recommendation, it’s not the worst movie to put on and talk over with a group of friends. The confusing, yet-to-be resolved twists that happen in the last 10 or 11 minutes can be fun to laugh about after the fact, but it’s nowhere near worth watching alone. If you’re looking for a refresher for your third-semester French, maybe go watch something by Rhomer (specifically “Claire’s Knee”).