Intimate Strangers
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Movie Reviews of Intimate Strangers
Movie Review: An unusual love story, nicely realized
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the most nuanced of Patrice Leconte's films that I have seen. Everything is carefully constructed at a measured pace with just enough revelation as we go along, but no more, so that we can follow the plot's development easily. The film is cut as close as a barber's shave and is as neat as a pin.
Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire), who is a bit of a tease, finds herself in what she thinks is a shrink's office. (There's a magazine on the desk whose title is partially obscured so that only the word "analyst" appears to her eyes, thereby confirming her expectations.) Behind the desk however is William Faber (Fabrice Luchini) who is a tax accountant and perhaps the last man in the building who could conceivable help Anna with her marital problem. He is after all something of recluse. He doesn't drive. He usually eats alone in his apartment, which apparently is the same place as his office, watching TV (in one scene it's Humphrey Bogart as Phillip Marlowe with French subtitles). He is only marginally experienced in the ways of human relationships and knows little about psychoanalysis. (The "analyst" magazine on his desk was on economic analysis.)
She flips a zippo cigarette lighter, lights a cigarette like someone new to smoking, and begins to tell a somewhat astonished Faber about the intimate details of her married life, mainly that her husband won't touch her anymore.
I previously saw Bonnaire in La Ceremonie (1995), directed by Claude Chabrol, in which she played a mean, hateful housemaid, and she was very good there. Here she is playful, almost childish at times, as she reveals her life to this stranger.
This is the first time I have seen Luchini who is very properly Parisian in his carefully knotted tie (worn even while preparing his solitary meal). His acting style is markedly laid back. He carries an almost continual look of surprise on his face--astonishment almost--with his eyes made big and round and his demeanor controlled and taciturn.
Because Anna is so direct and begins talking about herself almost immediately and because Faber is a most polite man who will not interrupt her, it is several minutes before he has the opportunity to advise her that she really wants the office down the hall where the psychoanalyst Dr. Monnier holds forth. By then he is intrigued with her and smitten, and is slow, very slow, to advise her of her error.
Also because Anna likes to talk about herself like a teenager and because William Faber is a practiced listener, there is a certain simpatico that automatically develops.
One can see where this is heading. She talks, he listens. She performs, so to speak; he appreciates. Faber is the kind of man, as his "ex" points out, who never makes the first move. This is good for Anna because it allows her to become comfortable with him before she has to respond.
The complications begin with the appearance of Anna's husband who first makes an unusual sexual demand of the very proper tax accountant, and then when that is refused, treats Faber to a most upsetting motel scene through a window across the way. Yes, it's a little contrived (as is the movie's premise). But I like the way Leconte didn't let us see the scene and only revealed later what Faber had seen.
Near the end of the film we see Faber for the first time sans necktie, which we can guess signals a change in the man. The film ends in a most artistic way with a shot from above as Anna lies stretched out on a classic analyst's couch in a cute frock with her ankles crossed and Faber... Well, we see the credits roll down the screen and we can imagine what will eventually happen.
My favorite Leconte film is Ridicule (1996). I also liked his La Fille sur la pont (1999). If you haven't seen his work you are in for a treat. He is witty in a sly way (especially here in Confidence trop intimes) and can be strikingly original. Like all good directors, he never loses track of the audience and the needs of the audience. His films are carefully cut so that we always know what is going on, but without any heavy-handedness.
See this for Patrice Leconte, one of France's most talented film makers.
Movie Review: "Listening is a lost art in our times."
Summary: 4 Stars
Anna, (Sandrine Bonnaire), opens the wrong door and ends up in the office of tax attorney William Faber, (Fabrice Luchini), instead of next door for her first appointment with Dr. Monnier, a psychiatrist. Before the bemused Farber can straighten things out, Anna begins to unburden herself candidly, as if she's been on the couch for years. "I have an urgent problem," says she. Then, confessing that her marriage is on the rocks, her husband unemployed and impotent - he hasn't touched her in six months - she begins to cry. William is stunned, moved by her tears, but before he can respond she is out the door. Fast exit, no payment. Everyone knows that the fee is part of therapy.
Faber's life is bland. He lives in the flat where he was born, never having moved or really traveled. He inherited his father's business and many of the old clients. Used to an orderly existence, he lives alone and usually takes dinner by himself, with a glass of wine, while listening to music. Occasionally, through the window, he catches glimpses of couples, other lives. Jeanne, his last and perhaps only love, (Anne Brochet of the wonderful smile), left him for another man but they get together occasionally and maintain a close friendship. He is decidedly intrigued by Anna's visit but does not expect a repeat performance.
He is fascinated after visit number 2, when he finally manages to blurt out, "I'm not a doctor." Anna responds quickly, that she knows many therapists are not doctors and that's fine by her. Again, she leaves quickly. William is the one to visit Dr. Monnier, the shrink, (Michel Duchaussoy), who tells him that this situation is about his own problems and not Anna's. He also explains that accounting and psychiatry are not that different because, "they both decide what to hide and what to reveal."
As Anna and William's sessions continue and become more intimate and graphic, William is clearly aroused, almost titillated at times. He obviously begins to develop feelings for this confused, attractive woman, who says she wants nothing more than to regain her husband's affections. Yet, the two are deeply drawn to each other, their role playing is a way to form a bond without emotional risk. They are both odd, but sympathetic characters. William had dreams of adventure once, when younger, however he has become entrenched, staid, with middle age. A sensitive but repressed man, he has not lived life to the fullest. He is captivated by the graceful, unpredictable Anna. And she is intense, mysterious, vulnerable, and one gets a sense that no one has ever bothered to listen to her before. But can she be trusted?
Anna eventually learns Farber's true identity as a financial planner - just when he was making such progress as a therapist too. The plot takes a further twist when Marc, Anna's creepy husband, enters the picture which adds another touch of Hitchcock to the mix. The movie does succeed in becoming a low-keyed, but taut thriller. William's secretary, Madame Mulon, (Helene Surgere), adds a light touch as she tries to discover what on earth is going on behind the closed doors of her employer's office.
Patrice Leconte is an excellent director. He has a knack for developing characters, and here he has two superb actors to work with. The brooding musical score is atmospheric and serves to add tension. One of the film's major themes is expressed clearly by Dr. Monnier who says, "Listening is a lost art in our times: not even barbers, beauticians, or bartenders seem to have the knack or the patience anymore to attend to others in this way." I was deeply touched by "Intimate Strangers." It is an elusive piece, romantic, Freudian in a good sense, with a wonderful conclusion. Highly recommended!
JANA
Movie Review: "People have lost the art of listening"
Summary: 4 Stars
Beautifully written and directed, with a penchant for understated romance and emotion, Intimate Strangers is all about that indefinable line that exists between sexuality and intimacy - between the boundaries of confidence and the realms of secrecy. The movie begins with an atmosphere of dark claustrophobia as these two complex and multi-faceted characters begin to open up to each other, and in doing so, manage to explore new facets of their long dormant personalities.
A distraught-looking mystery woman (a luminous Sandrine Bonnaire), walks down a windswept Parisian street. On the verge of middle age and desperately frustrated, she's on her way to her first appointment with Dr. Monnier (Michel Duchaussoy), a psychotherapist. The building's concierge, who is distracted by her favorite daytime soap opera, waves her toward the elevator and tells her she'll find the good doctor on the fifth floor. However, mistaking him for the neighboring psychiatrist, she accidentally who wanders into the office/apartment of William (Fabrice Luchini), a reclusive and solitary tax lawyer.
Immediately assuming that he's Dr. Monnier, the woman - whom we soon learn is named Anna - wastes no time letting out her grief on the quiet, sad-eyed and fastidious man. Nervously chain-smoking, she pours out her heart to him, not letting him get a word in edgewise. She tells him she's been married four years, her husband is at present unemployed, and has recently become sexually uninterested in her. His immediate reaction is an intriguing mixture of modesty and embarrassment, and when she starts talking about her sex life, he looks oddly troubled. But as the details become more graphic, he becomes strangely titillated.
He keeps up the façade and allows her to make another appointment. Confused and fascinated he, in turn, seeks advice from Dr. Monnier on how to deal with her. The Doctor suggests that William try to come clean but he can't. He also discusses the situation with his ex-girlfriend, Jeanne (Anne Brochet), and when she learns of the strange, intimate encounter, she becomes almost jealous and resentful. Gradually William becomes more and more obsessed with Anna, and believing that his sympathetic ear is doing her some good, gradually begins to fall in love with her.
Intimate Strangers is a story of how two people can, against all odds, fall into a platonic, almost surreal intimacy. A case of accidental mistaken identity infuses these two with a new lease on life, and forces them to make life-altering decisions. As their bond begins to form, Anna and William become more relaxed and open in their lives, both inside and outside of the office. But director, Leconte cleverly teases the viewer: As she becomes more relaxed and beautiful, we become just as obsessed with Anna as William is; we also wonder whether she is truly being honest and what her true motivations may be.
Later, when Anna's husband arrives on the scene, the story begins to take lots of psychological twists and turns as William is forced to confront once and for all his own feelings for her and his feelings for Jeanne, whom he still has a soft spot for. With truly outstanding performances, and cinematography that is absolutely astonishing, Intimate Strangers is psychologically complex and offers, with a subtle and restrained moodiness, the obsessive and fixated interest that we all have in the dark side of human nature and character. Mike Leonard March 05.
Movie Review: A little slow, but Bonnaire and Luchini are marvelous
Summary: 4 Stars
Much like Kurosawa for Japanese cinema and Ingmar Bergman for Swedish films, the entire onslaught of the 1960's New Wave has set a stereotype for our perception (and expectations) of French movies. We hear "Japanese movie" and Toshiro Mifune comes charging forth - sword in hand - in a mental image; someone says "Swedish film" and there's Gunnar Bjorstrand staring out at a wintery landscape mourning the absence of God; the words "French movie" arise and thoughts of lengthy dialogue and mildly pretentious camerawork form in our heads. I'd like to say that Patrice Leconte's astutely written Intimate Strangers breaks free from what the average filmgoer thinks of les films francaises, but that would be somewhat of a fib. Then again, Leconte (who made last year's fantastic Man on the Train) is good at what he does, no matter how stereotypically "French" it may outwardly seem.
The plot of Strangers is a sociologist's wet dream: a beautiful (but deeply disturbed) woman mistakenly walks into a tax attorney's office thinking he's a therapist, she starts telling him all her deep secrets, he's too enthralled to tell her the truth. Leconte and master cinematographer Eduardo Serra (Girl with a Pearl Earring) keep things low-key but mysterious for a while, everything heightened by Sandrine Bonnaire's delicate performance as Anna and Serra's narrow-focused hand-held camera. The atmosphere of the movie almost feels like that tax attorney's office: claustrophobic and secretive. Suddenly, though, we learn something that changes the entire dynamic of the relationship of Anna and tax attorney William (Fabrice Luchini), and the movie begins to branch out a bit. In come wry comic moments, new characters that may or may not be crucial, and - yes - more and more secrets about the sexy Anna. Ever so slowly, Intimate Strangers becomes less and less a social/moral dilemma and more an intricate little character study.
Which is both a strength and a weakness. Thing is, as interesting as the developments of the film may be, Strangers remains a little too tidy and a little too reigned-in for its own good. Leconte, who enriched Man on the Train with playful humor and a wonderful tear-jerker of a finale, seems content to just play it safe all the time here. Luckily, though, leads Bonnaire and Luchini don't suffer the movie's technical shortcomings at all. Luchini has a wan, faintly comical face that lends William some great little farcical moments that wouldn't work on anyone else. Bonnaire is a marvel of understatement, rendering a complicated woman accessible and intriguing without hysterics or melodrama. In short, this very odd couple makes Strangers worth it. In a general sense, this is a well-crafted-but-haughty French drama that satisfies without being moving or affecting. Pared down to Anna and William spilling secrets in a shadowy office, it's an actor's showcase. And that's never a bad thing. B
Movie Review: Someone Knocking on the Wrong Door; Unique Love Story Highly Nuanced
Summary: 4 Stars
Patrice Leconte's `Intimate Stranger' starts like a Hitchcock-like mystery, but soon you will realize that the film's real mystery is not about diamond theft or murder plot. It is about the nature of loving and being loved, seen through an ordinary financial advisor William (Fabrice Luchini).
When Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire) enters the office of a tax layer William by mistake, thinking that he is the therapist she was supposed to meet that day, William, utterly bemused at first, fails to reveal who he really is. Uptight William knows he should have told the truth, but Anna and her confessional story are too seductive for him to stop, or perhaps for any males.
It doesn't take much time for Anna to discover her mistake, but even so, she regularly comes to the office of William, who is intrigued by her. But why does she keep coming and talking about her life before a stranger? And what is the real story behind the sexually charged words of Anna, whose real life and personality are going to be tantalizingly suggested through the eye of William.
[HIGHLY NUANCED] It is certain that `Intimate Stranger' contains such elements as following and love affair; one of the characters may use threatening words, or you may be surprised at several twists of the story, but the film best works as romance, or a bit unusual kind of love story about a man and a woman. It is also impressive as off-beat comedy especially when we notice the rich details of the characters including the real psychiatrist Dr. Monnier (expertly done by Michel Duchaussoy), who gives precious tips to William, but not without some prices.
`Intimate Stranger' also offers insightful views on the role of psychiatrist with the portraits of William and Anna - for example, "What does it mean to listen to a stranger's confession by profession?" -- but `Intimate Stranger' is most impressive when it shows the power game between William and Anna. You don't see passionate love scenes, not even hugging or kissing, but you can see the passion in the words and faces of Anna and William. It is downplayed, but it is there.
This is not the best of Patrice Leconte, who did a similar thing in a less talky and more effective way in more sensual `The Girl on the Bridge,' but `Intimate Stranger' is still a very good showcase for the director's ability to present the intricate and intriguing relations between the characters.