Intimate Strangers
by Patrice Leconte
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Anne Brochet, Fabrice Luchini, Gilbert Melki, Michel Duchaussoy, Sandrine BonnaireDirector: Patrice Leconte
Cinematographer: Eduardo Serra
Writer: Patrice Leconte
Editor: Joëlle Hache
Producer: Alain Sarde
Producer: Christine Gozlan
Writer: Jérôme Tonnerre
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Surround Sound, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 104 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-12-28
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of Intimate Strangers
Movie Review: Brilliant....and very French Masterpiece from Leconte
Summary: 5 Stars
INTIMATE STRANGERS is another triumph for Director Patrice Leconte whose dazzling output includes 'Monsieur Hire', 'The Widow of Saint-Pierre', 'The Man on the Train', 'Tango', 'Ridicule', and 'The Girl on the Bridge'. Taking a simple scheme for a story - a desperate woman rings the wrong doorbell for a psychologist's appointment and mistakenly opens her intimate life to a tax attorney - and weaves this quiet encounter into an exploration of relationships, alienation, intimacy, and existentialism.
Sandrine Bonnaire as Anna delivers on of the most complex characters created for the screen. An actress of great beauty and talent, Bonnaire makes the disturbed Anna an intense but flighty, fragile female who is struggling to keep her husband Marc (Gilbert Mekli) from leaving her despite Marc's seemingly wasted existence. Fabrice Luchini is William Faber, the sad-eyed boring tax lawyer to whom Anna 'assigns' the role of therapist. William is in the throes of a wasted affair with Jeanne (Anne Brochet) who has taken up with a weight lifter in an arrangement that is not altogether monogamous (she still drops in to see William for talk and off the cuff sex). William remains a loner.
William feels guilty about Anna's mistaking him for a therapist and almost immediately seeks advice from the intended therapist, Dr. Monnier (Michel Duchaussoy), who seems less concerned with William's situation than he is with charging for advice! As Anna discovers William's true identity and delays her visits for a while, she eventually returns to William's kind listening and begins to unravel a sick relationship with her husband Marc. Marc eventually visits William and ultimately plays out his neuroses of the marriage with Anna in plain view of William.
Anna eventually leaves Marc to follow her early dream of being involved with ballet ad almost simultaneously William makes changes in his life that lead to a surprise ending.
The acting is absolutely first rate - subtle, in-depth portrayals, with everyone involved (including Helene Surgere as William's warmly curious secretary) giving us characters about whom we care and with whom we become involved. Even the cinematography by Eduardo Serra is pitch perfect for creating the ambience for this claustrophobic series of encounters. This is a strange story but one filled with questions about how we relate to strangers, to lovers, to co-workers, to people at large. Leconte typically does not deliver pat answers to any of the questions he raises: he is more concerned that we are left to consider the consequences for our choices. A fine achievement, highly recommended. In French with English subtitles. Grady Harp, February 2005
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