No se lo digas a nadie

Based on a mystery writer's novel which I've not read, the film succeeds courtesy of some great acting. So often a mystery is put together with clues and red herrings, and then at the end you fold a puzzle piece and voila it fits. I think it appeals to the clockwork mind, and as their is often crime involved, there is a sense of some extracurricular guidance towards justice.

While this film has that, and action moves like car chases, pistol whipping and a lengthy running script (the kind Tom Cruise would demand be inserted in a film of his), Francois Cluzet holds the center of the film in more gentle hands. He's a good guy, even when mixed up with the bad guys, he brings out their inherent benevolence. You go, Bruno!

Films like this hinge upon believing that bad moves are really the best moves one can take, the story and acting help sell that here in my opinion. In real life, I think in most cases perhaps not as intricate as this, I would Tell Some One, and likely an authority. Granted plenty of films from America North and South, make clear the dangers of corrupt cops and who watches the watchers. Maybe in Europe, things could be different.

Again for the genre, experts might not enjoy this (or pick it apart for a variety of reasons). But I was able to just enjoy the people on screen foremost (always helps to have Nathalie Baye involved), and then the pacing and plot.

Nice to see the director hatched the script and put himself in the mix on screen as well. Recommend you watch it, and then figure out the right someone to tell to see it next.

Also excellent music throughout, especially that closing track.

Pediatrician Alexandre Beck (François Cluzet) and his wife Margot (Marie-Josée Croze) are skinny-dipping at the lake late at night. Margot disappears while somebody knocks out Alex. The police considers him prime suspect. Eight years later, two male bodies are found near the lake and the police starts investigating him again. Alex receives mystery e-mails showing Margot alive and out in public. He starts wondering about the body that was presumed to be her years ago that was identified by her father. He tells his sister Anne and her partner Hélène Perkins (Kristin Scott Thomas) and they hire lawyer Elysabeth Feldman. Mysterious thugs kill their friend Charlotte and set him up.

It's a good Hitchcockian mystery. It's got intensity like running across the highway. It's nice that none of the main characters are idiots. It's a smartly written complicated case that is slowly revealed. The best of all is that I think it all works. The only drawback is my unfamiliarity with the French legal system. The cops seem to be very pushy and I would think any smart man would ask for a lawyer. It's a great engaging mystery from start to finish.

Tell No One (2006)

An intense, constantly evolving ambush of suspicion, including an epic footchase in the center of the movie and a couple final twists that will rock you at the end.

The leading character, Alexandre, is central throughout, played with drawn poker-face by Francois Cluzet. You might even say he overplays his sobriety, because he's not so much impassive in the face of upheaval as blank to it at times. But overall it's what he is, this man who faced a personal tragedy eight years earlier and now still struggles with the truth of it.

And we all struggle with this truth. Once the initial murder happens we are struck by the absence of a body. And by a feeling that something isn't what it seems. When the police re-interview Alexandre after eight years (which seems to be long enough for a statute of limitations declaration, though I don't know French law), we suddenly suspect him of either the murder or of complicity. There are new facts. There is a suspicious sighting in a surveillance video. There are his own doubts. And our doubts about his doubts.

The cast sprawls a bit at times--there are four main women, and several lesser men, so keep alert. The father and the father-in-law, the girlfriend's girlfriend, the sister, the lawyer, and so on. And it is the unfolding of conversations and stories and confessions that make the truth come out, one of those cases of telling rather than showing what happened. By the end this becomes a huge weakness in a movie that had so much shown and so much action until the last half hour. The twists are so huge, and played out with a couple of re-makes (so that the same actors replay the scenario differently now that the facts are rearranged), it's slightly flabbergasting.

If you don't mind having the wool pulled over your eyes this way (in a way you can't object to), you will be impressed by the overall tone of things. There is the energy and worry of a good American adventure crime film with fewer pyrotechnics and some convincing realism, both welcome in a world of overly produced movies. And the chase scene is notable--the man gets tired and sweaty, he has a lucky break or two, and then there's a brilliant if unlikely entry of a side of Paris we don't often see in mainstream movies, the minority neighborhoods with their brooding anger against the police which reminded me of late 60s America. It's a short insight.

If this seems like your arena at all, I'd definitely give this a look. We're all pretty used to unlikely twists by now, anyway, so the rest of the movie will hold itself up well.

Excellent film. I'd never heard of the book it's based on. The movie does have the kind of complex characters that are more associated with novels than with cinema.

It's Hitchcockian to some extent - its premise is a classic "wrong-man" scenario, with suspense, humour and chase sequences. But the de rigeur romantic element here is, for the most part, tinged with a strange melancholy , and it's this that gives the film such an unusual atmosphere.

Leading man François Cluzet is probably weary of being compared to Dustin Hoffman, but the fact is there is more than a passing resemblance. Nevertheless, Cluzet is very much his own man, and is as good, if not better, than the Hoffman of, say, 'Marathon Man', which inevitably comes to mind as one watches Cluzet taking to his heels in the breathless, breathtaking chase sequence.

Although Cluzet carries the movie, the rest of the cast, which contains a number of very distinguished French actors, is first-rate.

The plot is full of twists and turns, and the story-telling full of time-jumps, so you really need to concentrate. I'll need to get the DVD to check I understood it right.

All in all, it's an excellent edge-of-your-seat thriller: a splendid, somewhat scary, night out at the movies.

The pediatrician Alexandre Beck (François Cluzet) misses his beloved wife Margot Beck (Marie-Josée Croze), who was brutally murdered eight years ago when he was the prime suspect. When two bodies are found near where the corpse of Margot was dumped, the police reopen the case and Alex becomes suspect again. The mystery increases when Alex receives an e-mail showing Margot older and alive.

I am a big fan of French cinema, but "Ne le Dis à Personne" is an awesome thriller and superseded my expectations. The story and the characters are well-developed and there are simply no flaws in the complex plot, with all the situations being perfectly explained. The cast is fantastic, giving credibility to their characters. Only now I have seen the number of awards and nominations of this great film. Congratulations, the people that made this film really deserve them. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Não Conte a Ninguém" ("Do not Tell Anybody")

Note: On 09 Oct 2021, I saw this film again.