Book review: the contemporary femme fatale: gender, genre and American cinema by Katherine Farrimond

In The Contemporary Femme Fatale: Gender, Genre and American Cinema, Katherine Farrimond shows how the femme fatale - primarily associated with the classic film noirs of the 1940s and 1950s – remains a remarkably resilient and malleable figure in the present, tracing her appearance across a variety of genres in contemporary US cinema. This is a well-argued, convincing study, writes Fiona Handyside, with a reading of the femme fatale that demonstrates her capacity to pose vital and complex questions about the representation of women’s agency, sexuality and desire in the current cultural landscape.