The first reviews of Brian de Palma’s “Passion” are appearing online. The movie had it’s world premiere earlier today during the Venice Film Festival. Rachel did not attend the premiere, but her co-star Noomi Rapace did. We will add the reviews focused on Rachel in this post, so keep checking back for more.

The movie will have it’s North America premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next week (September 11). Rachel is expected to attend the festival, so I am hoping she will do promotion for the movie.

C+
Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams star as members of a Berlin ad agency, and the casting is pleasingly against type. McAdams’ character – blonde, sapphic, possibly sick in the head – is Christine, a company highflyer who dresses like Grace Kelly but does business like Gordon Gekko. She’s working her way to the top of the corporate ladder off the sweat of her unassuming coworker Isabelle (Rapace): “You have talent. I made the best use of it,” the ice-queen boss tells her mousy underling after taking credit for her latest presentation. The characters are little more than noir cyphers, but both actors are game and have fun taking turns at playing femme fatale as they cross and doublecross each other throughout the increasingly convoluted narrative.
–IndieWire

The ongoing popularity of De Palma’s back catalog, likely to be boosted by the upcoming Carrie remake, also will add some marquee appeal. But overall the blandly titled Passion appeals as a proposition for the small screen via VOD and DVD, where, as with Femme Fatale (2002), the director’s campy excesses eventually might attract a cult following.
–The Hollywood Reporter

McAdams and Rapace never really convince as rich, manipulative and self-assured advertising executive Christine and talented but rather innocent and insecure junior manager Isabelle. McAdams is better though at catching the playful, parody element in her role, something that Rapace, who is all intensity, seems to struggle with.
–Screendaily

“[…] Yet even in the absence of stellar material, the leads remain compulsively watchable: McAdams may lack Scott Thomas’ hauteur, but more than makes up for it in cool, svelte malevolence, while Rapace provides an energetic counterweight, lending her more naive but also more unpredictable Isabelle an edge of dark desperation.”
–Variety