Michel (Laurent Lucas) is a con-artist who seduces and swindles women. Gloria (Lola Duenas) is a single mother looking online for a partner, urged to send a message to Michel by her friend and mother. Meeting on a dinner-date, he charms her immediately, but she soon discovers what he’s up to. To his surprise, Gloria is okay with it—he can keep swindling other women so long as he returns to her.
Alleluia is influenced by the crimes of Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, commonly referred to as the Lonely Hearts Killers, and adheres to reports that Martha was incredibly jealous, resorting to murder if Fernandez ever appeared ready to consummate a relationship with a mark. Such details are unreliable, however, and updated for the present day, with scenes that feel script-driven rather than character-driven, they lead to a misogyny that is difficult to overlook.
Michel’s relationship with his marks is never more than cursory, and worse, neither Lucas nor Duenas are convincing performers. Every scene becomes even harder to buy because of the inert, emotionless actors. Lucas is a convincing con-man, and Duenas shines when her character’s murderous side comes to the front, but everything about them hints too strongly at those sides and lacks the pathos, chemistry, and charisma to make their darker sides shocking. The result is a film that moves from scene to scene with little internal coherence, with the primary spectacle being Gloria’s craziness.
The lazy execution is reflected in the weak script. Gloria’s child disappears without being written out. Michel’s affection for another child tips off Gloria that he is falling in love with his mark. Never mind that we see so little of them together that the suggestion would be all but impossible save for another heavy-handed plot device, thus robbing the story of potential conflict and eliminating nuance in character. Michel’s Satanistic ritual that he commences before meeting women is a gimmick without any significance or recursion.
With the script’s deficiencies exposed rather than hidden by performances, the remaining way for the film to transcend its mediocre parts would be through its visual aesthetic, but the film is shot in textbook independent style: handheld camera, occasional longish takes and close-ups during dramatic confrontations. The sets are nondescript, with homes revealing nothing about those who dwell in them, and occasional effects trickery (strobes, color tints) used as cheap ways of conjuring “moodiness.”
Everything about Alleluia is phoned-in. There are few scenes or moments to speak of, with almost every scene used to represent something. The dinner date tells us Michel is charming; Gloria’s suspicions tell us she’s crazy rather than telling us anything about character dynamics; sex acts mean love. None of these occurrences has any resonance on its own, nor does the film.