Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien

One of the first moments of this movie makes inevitably think of "Shining" (1980) by Stanley Kubrick and "Funny Games" (1997) by Michael Haneke: an aerial shot which follows a car on the highway. Inside it, a typical French family who goes on holiday in their country house hoping to find some peace. It's particularly true for the parents, Michel and his wife who seem to be all keyed up because of their restless children. On a rest area, Michel meets an old school friend: Harry who proposes Michel to come and spend a couple of days to his country house. The latter accepts. From the beginning, Harry appears as a charismatic and mysterious character. Who is he? Where does he come from? What does he want? We learn very few things about him or just vague facts. The director Dominik Voll preferred to leave high and dry Harry's origins and it's better this way because the spectator can imagine whatever he wants about him. Be that as it may, we can bring a beginning of answer to the third quoted question: Harry wishes Michel well and he's ready to do anything for this, even to kill...

After a six-year absence (his last movie was "intimacy" in 1994), Dominik Voll made a successful comeback with "With a Friend like Harry" (2000). He seduced both the critics and the public and won 4 French Oscars in 2001 including Best Actor for Sergi Lopez. It's funny to note down that the basic idea for his second feature-length film came to him from a holiday memory when, just like Michel he met an old school friend which he hadn't seen for years. This trivial detail inspired him to focus his movie on the theme of the double. Besides, the first apparition of the two main protagonists happens in front of a mirror. Harry can be considered the incarnation of Michel's repressed drives and buried desires. In a way, he's what Michel would like to be or to do (consciously or not). I think there are numerous examples in Voll's opus and I will retain the three following points: Harry enjoys a perfect sexual life (eating a raw egg after an orgasm is good for health!) and perhaps Michel would like to know something similar to this. Then, Harry kills Michel's parents and every time the latter invites them for lunch or dinner, he has to fetch them: his father can't drive for medical reasons. Perhaps, Michel has hidden death wishes about his parents. At last, by congratulating Michel about the writings he made in high school, Harry probably wakes in Michel hidden desires of writer. Roughly, Harry wants to help his friend to advance in life, no matter what the price is.

"With a friend like Harry" is Voll's second film in six years but his making is absolutely awesome. If the beginning of the movie turns out to be a little trite:how many times in cinema have we seen the trick of the helpful character invading a so far peaceful universe? But fortunately, once this moment passed, the rest makes forget this weakness. The movie adopts a slow rhythm without hastes and opts for the unexpected to play with the spectator's nerves. Dominik Voll weaves a more and more heavy even stifling atmosphere marked out by Michel's psychological changing who seems to become a little unrecognizable to his wife. Besides, she tells to Harry: "you've got a bad influence on Michel". This heavy atmosphere is reinforced by a precise and rigorous making which favors close-up shots and the length of quite numerous sequences. Overrall the director achieved a tour de force by mixing several cinema genres in a coherent story. What is close to comedy in the beginning of the story ends up turning to drama and thriller and the abrupt changes of tone follow on from each other with a diabolical logic. Moreover, Voll knows how to use black humor and certain moments give sometimes to the work an eccentric side.

Needless to say that the cast is largely equal to the story. Already remarked in the invigorating "Western" (1997) by Manuel Poirier (whose he is one of his favorite actors), Sergi Lopez finds the role of his life in Harry. It will certainly be hard for him to equal his performance in the future.

Highly recommended, "With a Friend like Harry" is a work that can be understood on several levels. It's a fascinating work and however we come out of the projection with a little uneasiness because of Michel's disturbing face. Harry's influence has altered him and he looks threatening as if he was going to commit something bad. As for Harry, in the domain of the pain in the neck characters, he is, in the long run, not exactly like Seraphin Lampion in "the adventures of Tintin"!

The debut of french director Dominik Moll is a brilliant movie that follows Hitchcock's school of classic suspense to the letter, while keeping the directors own modern style in a psychological thriller reminiscent of David Lynch.

Laurent Lucas stars as Michel, father of a middle-class family that goes on vacation to their house in rural France. On a gas station he finds Harry (played by Sergi López), a rich man who went to high school with Michel and that is traveling towards Switzerland with his girlfriend Prune (beautiful Sophie Guillemin). Michel invites Harry to his house, because even when he can't remember who Harry is, it seems as if Harry remembers everything about Michel.

The problems of Michel with his parents and his wife Claire (Mathilde Seigner) will come to light as Harry intrusion becomes more apparent and Claire begins to wonder how healthy is Harry's influence over his husband.

The story moves at a slow pace building the suspense and the tension between the characters to a maximum. Nevertheless, the direction and the script make sure that this slow rhythm will not become boring or tiresome and the movie works very wheel filled with interesting scenes that give everything you NEED to know about the characters, but not everything you WANT to know about them.

This classic take on suspense and mystery, that many have tried with mixed results, works very good here thanks to the wonderful script that adds scenes of bizarre surrealism that while serve the purpose of breaking the suspense, they also increase the tension and mystery surrounding their characters.

It's worthy to mention the superb acting of those involved. Lucas, Seigner and López have a good chemistry on screen that clearly helps the movie to be as powerful as it is.

By the end of the movie the tension is at it's peak and the script makes the most of it giving a brilliant finale that even when it is very simple it is both mysterious and rewarding.

This is not the typical thriller with horror/suspense. It's a modern update to the classic suspense style of film-making that Hitchcock did so well. 8/10

While on holiday, a drab harried family man meets up with a forgotten high school chum who proceeds to alter the course of his life through a re-awakening of his school-day aspirations; and through murder!

I like this, alot. It didn't fall into the trap of terrorizing simply to satisfy the filmakers psychosis. Everything followed a logical progression, which in itself has become novel in films which all tend to bend over backwards to be innovative and end up more often than not aggravating us. This was interesting, and sorta believable. A few holes here and there, like why in the world would the parents follow Michael in the middle of the night. But all in all, you could see it happening and identified with the characters, Michael included. Dont buy the figment of his imagination theory, for its bunk. I detest dubbings, but all in all the films a welcome diversion from the same ole same ole.

There is something alarming and off-kilter about Harry from the moment we meet him; his casual way of speaking about orgasms and forgotten childhood poems to (essentially) complete strangers just a few hours after their first meeting only intensifies our suspicions. Sergi Lopez gives a brilliantly unnerving yet subtle performance as Harry, and he's the best reason to see the film. But not the only one. The director is able to present characters, situations and family tensions that are thoroughly believable, thereby drawing us deeply into the story. The acting is first-rate, the camerawork excellent; what the film needed to help it move into the realm of "great" was a little more snap. (***)

The major flaw with this film is that Harry's motivation for his patronage of Michel and Claire is never fully disclosed. It obviously has something to do with wanting Michel to start writing again, but I was waiting for the entire film to find out what Harry is really after and I never did. Character-driven stories are all about motivations and desires, and these are lacking in this, a very character-driven film, which harms rather than helps it.