Irma Vep review — Alicia Vikander shines as an A-lister abroad in chaotic comedy

In the 1996 film Irma Vep, a fading French auteur loses his sanity trying to remake the silent-era classic Les Vampires. “It’s been done, why do it again? It’s a trap,” sighs an exasperated crew member at one point.

Now, 26 years later, the writer-director of that indie gem, Olivier Assayas, is heedlessly defying his own cautionary words by returning to Irma Vep and adapting it into a new eight-part series for HBO (airing on Sky Atlantic in the UK). But if repeating, disturbing or attempting to improve on what has gone before can be a trap, then it’s one that Assayas is clearly too wily and fleet-footed to fall into.

Despite appearing on the small screen, the show seems bigger, sharper and funnier than its predecessor. While the latter was an affectionate send-up of the navel-gazing intellectualism and umbilical attachment to the past of French filmmaking in the 1990s, the targets here are wider and updated — ranging from soulless franchises and streaming platforms to that dirty word, “content”.

The narrative background against which this plays out has remained largely the same. Once again the story follows an actress who arrives in Paris to star in a reproduction of Louis Feuillade’s crime epic. This time, however, she’s not an outsider from Hong Kong — as Maggie Cheung was (as both a character and actress) in the original — but a Hollywood A-lister called Mira, played by the similarly high-profile Alicia Vikander.

The show finds both the fictional and real actresses embracing risk. For Mira, taking the role of Irma Vep — the bewitching femme fatale in Les Vampires — means sacrificing easy cash for the sake of elusive critical cachet. Vikander meanwhile opens herself up to interpretations that the spiky and broadly unhappy character she plays is a Mira-image of herself. Where she could have been stilted and self-conscious in a less-than-flattering role so close to home, she instead delivers an assured performance full of authenticity and emotional candour.

The latter comes through especially as Mira pines for ex-lovers Laurie (Adria Arjona) and Eamonn (Tom Sturridge). But the series is at its most engaging when it immerses us in the behind-the-scenes chaos of the shoot. In fact, had the show just focused on the attempts of the obsessive, agitated director René Vidal (Vincent Macaigne) to keep his volcanic frustrations in check, that might have been entertainment enough.

That said, Irma Vep often feels more insidery and less accessible than, say, Call My Agent!, which takes place in much the same world. There is, for instance, a knowing looseness to the plotting and plenty of talky meditations about the state of modern cinema.

“The industry is too aware of what the audience wants,” Mira laments, and you could argue that Assayas is railing against such pandering with his esoteric series. But his approach may be less driven by contempt for viewers’ diminished standards than a faith in what they might enjoy if given the chance. As an unusually upbeat René says of one of his scenes: “Don’t worry, they’ll get it. Audiences are not morons.”

★★★★☆

On Sky Atlantic and NOW in the UK from August 2 and on HBO Max in the US now

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