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A scene from the movie Passion.

Once a mean girl, now a very mean woman: Rachel McAdams plays Christine, the iciest blond villainess since Catherine Tramell, in Brian De Palma's Passion. An ad agency boss with an S&M bent, she's best frenemies with her ambitious creative director, Isabelle, played by Noomi Rapace. Rounding out the love-hate rectangle are Dani (Karoline Herfurth), a presumed lesbian who has it bad for Isabelle, and Dirk (Paul Anderson), who is Christine's boyfriend and Isabelle's lover. Psychosexual and stylized to the hilt, it's pure De Palma. Except it's not: Passion is a remake of Alain Corneau's still-superior Love Crime. Where Corneau flirted with erotic tension, De Palma flaunts it. Where Corneau went for nightmarish reality, De Palma does noirish dreams. If you have a taste for murder and a high tolerance for melodrama, Passion — albeit mostly passionless — satisfies.

Sept. 11, 8 p.m., Winter Garden Theatre; Sept. 13, 8 p.m., Scotiabank 1; Sept. 14, 9:30 a.m., Scotiabank 3

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