One thing this new exclusive clip from I, Anna proves is that Gabriel Byrne's copper DCI Bernie Reid probably hasn't been reading The Game lately. The sleaze manual's approach to Charlotte Rampling in this scenario would involve some 'negging' ("Hey, Charlotte, thought The Night Porter was a bit dull"), a glint of Miller's Crossing Tommy gun, and possibly a flash of that Golden Globe, rather than Reid's world-weary banter. His is a more of a postmodern pick-up technique, as you can see from the clip below.
There's few better that Byrne at conveying this kind of jaded intelligence - watch him in In Treatment for more recent evidence - and few more enigmatic screen presences than Rampling's. She's a possible eyewitness to a murder he's investigating, but his mind is increasingly elsewhere.
As Anna Welles, Rampling treads in the same heels as her femme fatale Velma in 1975's Farewell, My Lovely. There, Robert Mitchum was the 'tec falling under her spell; here it's Byrne. The effect is the same: a man and his marbles slowly parting company.
The modern noir thriller is directed by Rampling's son, Barnaby Southcombe, a family affair that promises good things. You can catch I, Anna in cinemas from December 7.
