Lucie (Le Besco) is a normal working-class teenager with a doting, if not always understanding mother, and one obsession - she's crazy about glamorous, radiant, unreal pop idol Lauren (Seigner). One day her mother arranges to give Lucie her dearest wish, and has Lauren visit her at home for a surprise TV appearance. Things, predictably, don't turn out as planned, and a distraught Lucie pursues her idol to Paris, where her hotel suite is besieged by other monomaniac fans. Somehow, Lucie makes it through to the star's inner circle to find that the showbiz dream isn't all it's cracked up to be. A timely story about the nature of fame, fan worship, showbiz illusion and exploitation, Emmanuelle Bercot's story gives the theme a distinctive twist in focusing on female-female fan obsession, with all that entails in terms of narcissism and lesbian desire. Mixing cold realism, fantasy and hothouse melodrama, Backstage is heady, intense and often moving, and provides another platform for Isild Le Besco (seen last year in Benoît Jacquot's À toute de suite), who is fast establishing herself as one of France's most compelling young performers.
