Diane deceives fellow employee/boss Karen of the French firm VolfGroup for her vital position in an upcoming deal. Diane takes charge after an incident to Karen, but secretly she's working for another company who's interested in the deal involving the Japanese corporation TokyoAnime. Things take a turn for the worse for Diane, when they meet the American distributors of demonlover.com and they unearth a little unknown and hard to access underground torture/bondage/rape Website they promote. Diane thinks she's in complete control of the situation, but there's more going on behind the scenes than she really knows.

The idea behind this French industrial techno-thriller is confounding, odd and grim, but its over-stylised direction and shady plot with disconnected characters can spoil much of the lasting impact. Again in this age why does the camera-work have to be so frenetic and strident during the fast-moving action set pieces. So you have trouble of making out just what is happening. Even the incoherent plot is a complete muddle of ideas and notions, and probably over-long. However it's always engrossing and the constantly knotty developments that populate the story can create an unsteady intensity. The focus on corporation influence and character pitfalls is premeditatedly cold, as we get pulled in to a loop of shadowy vagueness and desensitised feelings of a society feeding off the darker side of corruption for its kicks. It's one complicated web, populated with a rich load of dialogue, but it could've used a little more depth on its interesting subject. The set-up kind of reminded me of David Cronenberg's superior "Videodrome (1982)". What impressed me most was the pulsating music score by Sonic Youth. Their sterile, dark and incredibly moody instrumental cues interwoven with jaunty sound effects crafted out an effectively brooding and impulsive atmosphere. The technical side of the production is professionally glossed up, but the subject deserved a little more rawness to it. Anyhow the polished nature captures some beautiful, but also dark and jarring images where the icy blue and sleepy locations are framed by some sparsely haunting camera-work. The neon and stark lighting is also an added plus. Olivier Assayas' direction is far more surefooted and visually slick, compared to his loose and splintered writing. The performances are modest, if kinda dry and unemotional. Connie Nelson looks gorgeous, and excels in the effortless part as the calculated, but really vulnerable Diane, who finds out she can't escape what she has dug herself into. The ace Charles Berling is superbly shifty in his role. Chloe Sevigny is suitably fine and the savvy Gina Gershon was a delight to watch.

Feels depressingly empty, but this busy (maybe too so?) and stylish espionage story has its moments.

It's rather sad to watch a talented filmmaker - which French director Olivier Assayaz without a doubt is - taking an original idea and then strangling it with his own hands. Demonlover starts out great - like a 70's spy film, only set in the world of adult Internet sites, which makes the film so much more exciting. And it looks very good, too - as if it takes place in some kind of futuristic sterile world full of bright but cold colours. But in the second half the movie takes a turn towards Lost Highway territory and in the end finds itself exactly where it headed - nowhere. Instead of giving us, viewers, a satisfying resolution of a conflict, the director drags us down the blind alley and shoots us - as well as his own film - in the back. Still, Demonlover has enough to offer to make it worth watching (like a terrific score by Sonic Youth) at least once. It's only the fact that it could be truly great instead of just worth watching, that bothers me

I'm not quite sure what to make of this film to be honest. Connie Nielsen, Gershon, and Sevigny gave good performances. However, that's not enough is it? The plot was very convoluted and hard to grasp. It was corporate espionage within the porn industry. Which could have been very interesting if the direction was executed properly. But that wasn't the issue as much as the script was. Towards the end there were one too many 'back stabbings" to keep track of, and I wasn't sure who was responsible for what. Gershon's character seemed to have disappeared and another main character did as well with no explanation, at least that's my take on it. I did like the downer ending though, that was a nice touch.

The cinematography was beautiful at many points in the film and the score from Sonic Youth fit in very well with the vibe of the film. Back to the cinematography for a second, I couldn't enjoy it as much I should have since the DVD I viewed it on (region 1 - USA) had a very poor transfer. The image was very pix-elated. Did the production company or distribution company not care enough to do the DVD encoding properly? Anyway, I tried my best to enjoy this film but I could not. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. Apologies to everyone that worked very hard on this project.