L'adversaire

I must admit my French is a little rusty and I could have done with some subtitles so I was having trouble following the first half of the film on DVD. I borrowed it because I think Daniel Auteil is a good actor and had no idea what it was about except something about a man who lives a lie.

I watched it through to the end and recalled reading so many similar true stories in the last few years on cnn.com that I really got a shock by the end. As one of the scriptwriters comments in the extras on the French edition of the DVD says, "those scenes brought the film back into reality".

I found some of the editing a little jarring but perhaps that was intentional. It all makes sense in the end. Interestingly the producer - again, on the French edition of the DVD - said that she just wanted to follow the main character through his life without judging or diagnosing him, so perhaps those of you who know something about psychiatry will have a different perspective.

Stick with it, revel in the details of the film, and hug your family tightly afterwards.

It' sad, It's Hard but is a nice movie, some times is touching but the leit motiv of the film is how can a man act all his life pretending to be another completely different person, and anyone could notice anything, that's bizarre. That's were the movie lacks a reason or a mixture of thoughts to express to explain how could it be.

THE ADVERSARY (3+ outta 5 stars)

Chilling French suspense tale (based on a true story) of a seemingly well-to-do doctor, a husband and father, who turns out to be a complete fraud. He pretends to go to work in a prestigious medical building but all he does is loiter and kill time until he has to return home. He takes money from family and friends, pretending to invest it in foreign ventures... but he just uses their money to live on, buying his family more expensive homes and automobiles (plus a hot, young mistress for himself). But eventually people start demanding to see some returns on their investments... or want to withdraw large sums that the good "doctor" just doesn't have. So he keeps stalling and putting them off until he runs totally out of options and his whole world comes crashing down... resulting in his final, chilling actions. Terrific performance by Daniel Auteuil... who has the difficult job of trying to engender sympathy for a man who deserves none.

Emmanuel Carrere's novels are chilling, desperate and very well told. This adaptation to screen by Nicole Garcia works pretty well. If it wasn't based on a true story, you'd think that it's silly and a bit too much. The movie certainly doesn't leave a happy feeling with you, it's hopeless and sad, in everyone's point of view. So the story is told in the beginning of the movie, in the matter of fact before to movie starts, but the point isn't that at all. Film is about what's going on inside Jean Claude Romand's (played by great Daniel Auteuil) head and life during the times before he murders everyone he knows. The music in L'Adversaire is by Angelo Badalamenti, one of my favorite composers (escpecially Twin Peaks -soundtrack), and it fits perfectly. Latest adaptation of Carrere's work is La Moustache and it's directed by himself

Excellent performance by Daniel Auteuil; very inspired and gentle music; The image is great, too. But one should ask himself : Why? Why make a movie about someone who suffers senslessly his entire life, and eventualy kills his whole family because of his insanity .. Is it worth seeing? Well I guess you'll have to figure out the answer for yourself. But even with enough popcorn for 3 hours, one should never waist 2 hours of his precious life.