Confidences trop intimes

In "Intimate Strangers", a beautiful woman wanders into the office of a meek and unassuming tax consultant mistaking it for a psychiatrist's office. When the tax man realizes the error, the woman has already engaged him and wishes to continue their sessions. This relatively uneventful and mostly conversational drama is all about the symbiotic relationship which follows from the chance encounter and how it changes the lives of the pair of protagonists. The film features finely nuanced performances and penetrating insights into the relationship and little more. Don't expect any extremes of emotion, sex, nudity, or other titillaters as it's all about the interpersonal relationship; no more, no less. Excellent for what it is, "Intimate Strangers" will appeal most to mature audiences into French people flicks. (B)

No special effects, no computer animation, no supernatural forces, no gloss, no predictability.

Real life! There is nothing in the story that could not have happened somewhere some time. Told with beauty, humour, understatement, feelings, sensitivity. Leaving you time to think instead of throwing one visual effect after another at you. There is time for detail. Time for silence. Time for emotions. But you are never bored.

The story is simple, yet you are grabbed by it and led into its mystery.

The atmosphere marvellously represents real life in France at the time the film was made. No shining up. No simplification. This is real France. Sandrine Bonnaire and Fabrice Luchini are very convincing in their roles. The behaviour of the secretary is incredibly real.

This is French cinema near its best.

I actually went to my local "art house" movie theater to see "Napoleon Dynamite." I walked out of that movie after the first 10 minutes and walked into the movie playing in the room next to it, which happened to be "Intimate Strangers." I had no idea what this movie was about - in fact, had never heard of it but anything had to be better than "Napoleon Dynamite." What a pleasant surprise. Even though I missed the very beginning of the film, I figured out that Anna had a reversal problem and was visiting the wrong professional.

This movie explores a relationship of the mind, only hinting at the sexual. How refreshing!

This movie was entrancing. I fell in love with all of the characters. Who could not fall in love with Anna? How many times has a stranger walked into your life and you've found yourself captivated? Once - maybe twice? Perhaps I can ask that question since I met my husband due to circumstances that allowed our paths to cross (and any change in the smallest decision would have meant we would never have met) and within three days, we were planning a wedding. That was 20 years ago.

So no wonder I love this movie!

Patrice Leconte has long been one of my favourite directors...his predominate theme is simple...the intimate connection between two lonely strangers; evident in his previous classics....GIRL ON THE BRIDGE (1999) & MAN ON THE TRAIN (2002)...With INTIMATE STRANGERS, his characters meet by mistake...Anna (Bonnaire) is a beautiful, mysterious woman who has suddenly walked through the door of William's (Luchini) office in need of his professional counsel...however, she has mistaken his office for her psychiatrist's & has mistaken William to be a shrink...

INTIMATE STRANGERS is an elegant film...it has the feel & pace of an old noir film of the past where an equally beautiful & mysterious woman walks suddenly into the office of a private eye on some dark, stormy night...Leconte deals with the mind of a woman...revealing her deepest thoughts & desires...teasing us with every appointment between the two strangers...Bonnaire is intense & uninhabited as the distraught Anna & Luchini is the perfect compliment to keep the mode & atmosphere light when it needs to be...

Overall: Gorgeous looking film; camera work is almost excellent, shots over the shoulder seem almost voyeuristic...as if we are eavesdropping or tailing the characters....definitely one of the best Leconte films & one of the best of '04...

When a beautiful young woman mistakenly enters the office of a grey, quiet tax expert and, mistaking him for a therapist, shares her marital problems, she inadvertently sparks an unlikely, bittersweet friendship between them.

Even when the truth comes out, Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire) and William (Fabrice Luchini) continue to see each other, she coming to rely on his non-judgemental ear and he slowly becoming spellbound by her.

Patrice Leconte conjures up some of the sad, poignant atmosphere of Monsieur Hire but frames within it a much more optimistic story while eliciting two beautifully nuanced performances from his leads.