Diabolique Represents Quintessential Character Development

Serving as a predecessor, as well as a major source of inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique (1955) is a horror-adjacent French thriller. It follows the Michel Delasselle’s murder and its aftermath over the course of two tense and gripping hours. It feels like a Hitchcock film at heart, except that it’s in French. While the plot was intriguing and entertaining, what truly makes Diabolique stand out is the unique character development.

Diabolique opens in a French boarding school outside of Paris. We are introduced to the headmaster Michel Delasselle and it’s immediately clear that he isn’t well liked among the teachers or students: he’s cruel and sadistic. He’s married to Christina, one of the teachers, who has recently fallen ill with a terrible heart condition. Seeming to always accompany Christina is Nicole, who is obviously Michel’s mistress. Tension defines this three-character cast: Michel and Christina aren’t pleasantly married whatsoever: Michel only married Christina because of her familial worth and because the boarding school was included in the dowry.

Each character in the trio is entirely distinct, particularly the two women. When Christina and Nicole decide to murder Michel by sedating him and then drowning him in a bathtub—perhaps an inspiration for the iconic shower scene in Psycho—Chrstina’s demeanor is much more reserved and cautious. She genuinely shows restraint, unlike Nicole, not knowing if she wants to carry through with the murder of her husband.

Michel is the true epitome of corruption and evil (and rightfully so). For starters, he married a woman just for her wealth in hopes of ultimately having the boarding school all to himself, which is essentially taking advantage of her. He’s also physically and emotionally abusive to his wife. One scene stuck out to me where he takes his wife Christina into a room off-screen. We hear Christina’s screams as Michel beats her. The film then fades to black and abruptly carries on with the narrative. Diabolique doesn’t stay with this moment because it’s so innate to Michel as a character that it’s nothing new to examine. It’s just a normal day, sadly.

One thing that Nicole and Christina do share, though, is their fear of directly opposing Michel to his face. While they might politely try to correct or redirect Michel, their most aggressive comments are kept between them for good reason. If they were to be even mildly rude to Michel, they would only suffer more abuse.

Very soon, Nicole and Christina’s murder plot is enacted. They begin by first sedating Michel with laced liquor; Chrstina shows this great restrain, while Nicole, conversely, seems eager to move on with the plan. Nicole doesn’t have any reservations whatsoever. Once Michel falls asleep, the women drag him into their bathtub, which is already filled with water. Nicole then holds his head underwater for a good half minute to start drowning him while Christina grabs a small statue to place on Michel’s chest to keep him submerged. The women finally cover the bathtub with a tablecloth and immediately go to sleep.

Nicole immediately falls asleep without any further ado. On the other hand, Christina is tossing and turning all night, presumably, as her guilty conscience is destroying her mental state. It’s becoming somewhat strange, perhaps even suspicious, when I look back on Nicole’s utter lack of emotion when murdering Michel. Obviously, while Michel is quite a terrible man, murder must still take a significant toll on his emotions. It’s surprising to think that Nicole felt barely anything—or at least showing no signs of emotions—while carrying out the murder of a human. It led me, in that moment, to believe that Nicole was sadistic and merciless, perhaps even lacking basic emotional intelligence.

Nicole’s lack of doubt, when examined alongside Christina’s reactions, is really one of the first clues to the infamous plot twist at the end of Diabolique, where it’s revealed that Michel never actually died. Instead, Nicole and Michel worked together to stage a murder that would be so shocking to Chrstina that she died of a heart attack because of her worsening condition. No wonder Nicole was so ready to go through with murder when she was just playing pretend.

I cannot get over how excellent Diabolique’s character design is. Nicole and Christina are wonderfully different even though they are playing characters who could easily be quite similar. Michel, despite his evil nature, is a great character. He feels deserving of the murder because of how terrible he is. Clouzot really went all out on his animosity.

Diabolique (or Les Diaboliques, as the film’s title card presents it) means “The Devils” in French. With this translation and the ending in mind, Diaboliques asks you: who are the true devils of this story?