Going to Paris to avenge the rape of his lover, Frank, a young handsome chef in Las Vegas, who falls in love with a young beautiful girl, Lola, who claims that the boyfriend of her mother raped her, reveals the truth about Lola.
Even with too much focus on the former character, Frank & Lola, buoyed by Shannon's performance and Ross' acute eye for the seediness of his environments, is a commendable debut.
By the time Ross builds to a final shot that is utterly predictable in its ambiguity, it's hard to care either way about whether these two archetypal blanks will eventually reconcile the disturbing truths they have discovered about each other.
Ross shows his talent by taking Frank & Lola places we don't expect it to go. They may not always make sense, but there's daring in the attempt and that is always worth something.
There is, without a doubt, an intensity to the performances given by Michael Shannon and Imogen Poots... The result though is a movie that is unrelenting in its grim outlook.
Anyone who's ever wondered how Michael Shannon would fare as a smoldering romantic lead or how Imogen Poots might handle the role of a femme fatale has their answer in Matthew Ross' engaging psycho-thriller.
As an exercise in voyeurism, this is a movie that sleeps on its feet. Shannon is too good for this nonsense, and Poots has got to do something about that disastrous name.
