L'adversaire

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.

This true story had already been told one year earlier, back in 2001, with L'EMPLOI DU TEMPS, a film that many viewers found less interesting than this one. Let me say that I don't agree at all. Both are outstanding films. Nicole Garcia's film and the Laurent Cantet's one. Here, Daniel Auteuil is purely awesome, but he is not alone, the whole result is engrossing, riveting, the perfect example of a flawless movie. Such a story has not been remade by the American film industry, at least as far as I know,, and that's very strange. I mean such a scheme has not been made before, but maybe I am wrong after all. A real must see. From a true story, I repeat. Chilling.

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.

What a chilling experience, this terrific movie. Jean-Marc Faure's loneliness in conference halls and on the highway is so painful that it's hard not to feel compassion for him. All my credits to Auteuil and Garcia for this moving film. As you probably know, L'adversaire was based on a tragedy that truly happened some ten years ago. It didn't just inspire one, but two directors. The other film based on this story is L'emploi du temps, by Laurent Cantet. I watched it yesterday, and I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. Having read the very enthusiastic comments on this site, I expected a film of equal quality as L'adversaire but the latter outclassed it by far. I missed the palpable loneliness and desperateness in l'Adversaire, and Daniel Auteuil is in my opinion simply a more interesting and accomplished actor than Aurélien Recoing. If you haven't seen either of the films, I recommend you watch L'emploi du temps first, or just L'adversaire. It's always interesting to compare, but if you have already seen L'adversaire, you might be in for a little disappointment.

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.