Élodie Bouchez

Erick Zonca's "La Vie revee des anges/The Dreamlife of Angels" (1998) raised her profile further. Its emotionally powerful study of the deterioration of a friendship between two women cast her as the free-spirited, unaffected Isa opposite the turbulent, tragic Marie (Natacha Regnier). Though Regnier was excellent (and shared the Cannes Award for Best Actress with her co-star), it was Bouchez's female drifter who really dominated the picture, a fact finally acknowledged when she beat out the favorite Catherine Deneuve ("Place Vendome") for the Best Actress Cesar. Also shown at Cannes that year was Siegfried's "Louise (Take 2)," in which she played another free spirit, this time drawn to the risks of petty crime until her arrest makes her realize she is not who she is pretending to be. She starred opposite Jean-Marc Barr in Didier Le Pecheur's controversial, fact-based "J'aimerais pas crever un dimanche" (also 1998) playing a presumed deceased woman whom a necrophilic mortician has sex with only to discover she is not dead and the pair begin a relationship. Bouchez reteamed with Barr for his directorial debut, the English-language "Lovers" (1999).