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A woman with marriage problems mistakes a financial adviser for a psychiatrist. She tells him all the secrets of her life, whereas the man has not the strength to tell he's not the person she needs to talk to...

"Confidences trop intimes" is a brilliant film directed by Patrice Leconte, with two big French actors -Fabrice Luchini and Sandrine Bonnaire. The film is an intimate comedy, action is made by good dialogs. There's no boredom at all.

It's an interesting movie which shows a strange relationship growing -maybe the woman understands, later, that she has not found the right person. But she's lonely and needs to talk, at the same time the financial adviser is another lonely person who needs someone who catches him out of a boring life. They have nothing in common, but they are made for each other.

The film has a strong screenplay and is supported by the two leading actors -the scenes are almost always between them. The two characters are very deep, the intensity of their words and of their expression doesn't make you feel that the picture misses something. Because everything it's here. The film is able to picture a situation of everyday life, without developing a foreseen love story... Will the two live a real love relationship? We don't know exactly, there's the same ambiguousness which often dominate the relation between a man and a woman...

A very good movie.

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)

This is a very clever film with a lot to say about life, death, sex, human relationships, human fragility and loneliness - but it does it all with a wonderfully light hearted touch. Luchini dancing just has to be one of the best scenes - eat your heart out Hugh Grant!! Bonnaire is quite wonderful as Anne, literally blossoming before our eyes, her hair lightening, her skin glowing, her dress changing, becoming lighter and brighter. It seems her accidental psychiatrist does help her. Of course, we never know the full truth - can we believe everything she says - and the device of the windows, so key to the film's turning point, is Hitchcockian in the extreme - vision as deception. The most wonderful insight of this film, though, is that paying taxes and dealing with deep disturbing psychological issues have similar concerns - what do you declare and what do you try desperately to hide? And of course, both actions are undertaken in the name of individuals integrating themselves into society. Another excellent film from Leconte. Just because it is so polished and masterful story telling doesn't mean that it doesn't address other issues that a director such as Rohmer would tackle.

A stranger walks into your life and you find yourself totally captivated. In the hands of Patrice Leconte this is something worth watching.

It is the fourth film of his that I have seen. I watched it mainly for Sandrine Bonnaire, who captivates me as much as she captivated William (Fabrice Luchini).

He is an accountant, and she walked into his office by mistake thinking he was a psychiatrist. Even after they admitted they both knew the truth, she kept coming and he kept waiting for her, even shuffling his real clients out the door.

A fascinating exchange, full of surprises, and well worth watching again.

When I first saw this title I thought this was going to be a movie about modern day romances. We've all had one of these: great sex, fun parties, and lots of good times. But then you start asking, "who is this man or woman that I live/sleep/work with?" And in a way, this film does explore that type of relationship.

But it does so in such an unconventional way that you must be aware of the subtleties in the story. In fact, the story itself sets up a relationship that starts out as being objective for both the man and the woman. The objectivity allows for each of them to assess their feelings during the first two encounters.

But very quickly the external facts of the roles the main characters play in life becomes clear to each of them. This sets up another challenge. How will they or should they even continue their relationship knowing that a connection has been made through their interaction? And what is that connection? The plot takes both the man and the woman through some frightening times. Because of their relationship, each has to confront others in their lives. And finally they must confront each other and themselves. That is a tall order in today's world for a man and a woman who aren't even living together and who have not ever had sex with each other. But not acting on (or maybe the lack of) sexual lust turns out to be the key. Although the woman talks about her sex life, and we see the man still has ties to an old lover, both seem to be searching for something more than sexual intimacy. Not that sexual intimacy needs to be excluded in a relationship, but there must be something more intimate.

It is sometimes difficult to walk the fine line between comedy and banality, as well as hiding all the wire and papier mâché that form the construct known as thriller. "Confidences trop intimes" cunningly avoids the traps of both genres by simply shaking the constructs off, layer by layer.

The movie belongs to a genre, "comédie dramatique" ("dromedy"?) which usually in US movies is reserved for romance "chick flicks". Yet these intimate strangers bring quite a bit more to the screen. It's a pleasant relief to see them saying so much with so little, avoiding those deep memorable lines that are so out of place in the mouth of the common people movies of these kind are supposed to represent.

It's by juxtaposition that Leconte achieves the best effect, by not saying too much and underplaying it, always. In one memorable scene the lonely célibataire glances at the stages of life through his window. Through the glass of the opposite building he sees passion, argument and old age as the seemingly inevitable stages of life. His life seems codified, chosen by others and kept and controlled, in the good and in the bad: add the secret ingredient, an excellent Sandrine Bonnaire, and stir.

The film amusingly deconstructs the myth of psychoanalysis, and thanks to the great empathy of the Luchini character, succeeds in expressing the inexpressible, the desire, the longing sometimes solitary and hopeless. 9/10!

Immediately after watching this film, I was (unusually) not inclined to put my views to paper. I think I was vaguely disappointed and felt the film too inconsequential. On reflection, I have a fond feeling for it and suppose that my initial reservation was partly that there seemed so little to it. A woman goes into talk about herself to a psychiatrist and accidentally goes into a tax advisor's office instead. Nice idea but where does it lead? Well, dramatically it doesn't send us off into a great labyrinthine storyline but there is plenty to stir the grey matter and plenty of amusing moments along the way. Very good and likable performances by the two leads and good secondary ones from the elderly secretary, who really doesn't approve and the psychiatrist she was supposed to see, who also really doesn't approve! He does however make the inspired comment that the two men are perhaps not that far apart as they both cater to those who are coping with what not and what to reveal. Not so bad after all and well worth a watch.

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...

"Intimate Strangers" brings to the screen an off-beat, original relationships comedy (with real drama too). Fabrice Luchini is Parisian tax lawyer William Faber who lives and works in the apartment he grew up in. His dad was a tax attorney and here the audit didn't fall far from the tree. He's not unhappy, his practice is flourishing, but inspired he's not either.

Almost falling into his office/pad is Anna Delambre, the sharp and beguiling actress, Sandrine Bonnaire. Anna has an ADD history with spatial disorientation deficit so she messes up a simple direction to the therapist's office where she's scheduled for an initial appointment. Instead of the shrink's domain she enters Faber's den and, unaware of her mistake, begins telling a tale of marital discord to the initially unaware counsel who thinks he has a new law client.

It doesn't take long for Faber to realize there's a mistake but he's become intrigued by her and so he schedules a second "therapy" consultation. Faber is sorting through (perhaps without full insight) his feelings about the recent breakup with his live-in girlfriend, Jeanne, Anne Bouchet. Anne is hooked up with a stereotyped muscle man (meaning a harmless jerk) but the two still spend time together including "off the cuff" sex. Bouchet is sympathetically real and touching, in a quiet way, as a smart woman who may not be as sure of what she wants as she claims.

William and Anne continue meeting regularly at his office even after the latter discovers her mistake. Initial anger melts away and a platonic but increasingly intertwined relationship develops to the consternation and barely concealed exasperation of Faber's matronly secretary, Madame Mulon, Mulon, beautifully acted by Helene Surgere, was Faber's dad's secretary and she came with the office. Technophiles will get a kick out of watching her work with a twentieth century electric document production device.

The dark side is Anna's lying to her supposedly impotent hubby about her simmering affair which the guy assumes, with the aid of a private investigator, is Faber. Anna is trying to get her no longer enraptured-with-her spouse back without first considering if that's really the best thing for her.

Slightly plain at the beginning of "Intimate Strangers," Anna morphs into a striking lady as she becomes more confident about handling her life's issues.

Veteran director and acclaimed French auteur Patrice Leconte has made the most of a film that largely centers on intense conversations in small places. The ultimate resolution is no less believable for its predictability.

A good evening at an art cinema.

8/10.

A guy with a rather mediocre life opens the door of his office and finds there a woman who mistakes him for a shrink. He has no time to react so he let the woman tell him about her troubles. Anyway they'll find in each other kind of a exhaust valve for their lives.

The story in Lceonte's movie gives raise to several reflections: sometimes is easier to tell your deepest secrets to an unknown. There are not misunderstandings, there are not prejudices, there are not emotional walls to overcome. "Confidences" also states that the power of a psychoanalyst is quite debatable.

As for the cast, the actors are just nice. Sandrine Bonnaire looks as mysterious as always.

*My rate: 7.5/10

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!

There's an intriguing premise behind Patrice Leconte's film 'Intimate Strangers': a tax consultant starts receiving visits from a woman who mistakes him for a therapist, but in time he starts to wonder whether it is in fact she who is deceiving him. With nice performances from its small cast, the film avoids descending into pure thriller, but unfortunately suffers from the opposite vice: that while the premise is enticing, the film never truly moves beyond it, ultimately there's too little story here and that which does exist feels somewhat contrived. In other words, the subtlety of the mood shifts within the story are overshadowed by the mechanics used to bring these about: the result is quiet and distinctive film, but also a modest one.

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.

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.

No I did not find this film sexy, nor did it lead me to any great psychological or philosophical insights. It was what we used to say about unsatisfactory dates when I was an adolescent, "NATO" - No Action, Talk Only. I just kept twitching, wishing the bloody thing would END already. It was just a lot of endless blither, and, as such, effectively numbed any concern I might have had for the characters, rather than cause any empathy with them.

One additional problem I had with the print I saw was that the voices and lip motions were poorly synchronized - almost as if it had been badly dubbed into Franch from another language, which, considering that all the principal actors were born in France, probably was not the case. Perhaps other prints were better.

Niystill, as one critic said about O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" "It boreth, me snoreth, me thinketh it stinketh.".

Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire) has an appointment with her analyst, doctor Monnier (Michel Duchaussoy) to tell him her sentimental problems. But because of a little talky concierge and dimly lit, somewhat eerie corridors, she lands in William Faber's office (Fabrice Lucchini) who is a financial adviser. Expect the unexpected at least for a short time. Rather than telling her that he's not the right man to talk to, he listens to her very carefully and sets up a second appointment with her. The following week, he reveals her the truth but agrees to see her as many times as she wants to. Anna accepts his offer and these two idiosyncratic characters strike up an ambiguous relationship which will partly unveil their respective personalities, at least for William.

"Confidences Trop Intimes" is the successor of a peak in Patrice Leconte's eclectic filmography, "l'Homme Du Train" (2002) and if it doesn't exactly match the greatness of this film, it nonetheless remains a true winner which encompasses everything that makes Patrice Leconte a worthwhile filmmaker. First with this original starting point: a woman who was badly directed in a building winds up in an office belonging to a character who is a total stranger to her. But as doctor Monnier says: "there isn't a big difference between a shrink and a financial adviser: they have to define and solve their customers' problems. The difference is that to a financial adviser's his problems are bare while to an analyst's they're hidden".

Ambiguity is one of the key words to describe the relationships between William and Anna. Is Anna really in bad terms with her eccentric husband (stout Gilbert Melki)? Doesn't she try to manipulate her partner? Isn't she a little crazy? They're exciting questions that call upon the viewer's imagination. As for William, one realizes that the sort of therapy that links the two characters is mainly destined to him. He's probably THE main character of the whole film. At first, he seems strong but bit by bit he proves that he's a fragile character who yearns to change his life. His unexpected meeting with Anna gives him this opportunity and makes him elated for a while (see the delightful sequence when he dances to "in the Midnight Hour" by Wilson Pickett). But then his real personality appears: he's a rather vulnerable man who has trouble with women and perhaps that's why his wedding with his former wife (Anne Brochet) went unravel. Besides she tells him that he didn't make the first move to meet her.

Leconte is well served by his duo of actors and it's a real surprise to discover and appreciate Fabrice Lucchini in an introverted man whereas he is usually typecast in extrovert roles. Sandrine Bonnaire makes an ideal partner. One should also hail the filmmaker for having discerningly chosen the scenery of this idiosyncratic in camera. Dimly lit corridors and rooms are deftly incorporated to the plot and give a sultry sensation to the ambiguous relationship between William and Anne, a strong point that was tapped fifteen years ago in "Monsieur Hire" (1989) when Michel Blanc was alone in his cramped flat. Sandrine Bonnaire was then her partner. So, when the camera goes out into the open air, the interest depletes a little in spite of good moments. While I'm writing about this shortcoming, I could also regret a misunderstanding too quickly solved (the second time when William and Anna meet again, he tells her that he's not the right person) and mention a too much cozy end.

But overall, when you have a strongly built story which has a lot of space for surprises and the development of its characters and a lot of food for thought, you can skip without problems conspicuous faults and leave the projection with a big smile on your face. Once again Leconte filled me with joy. Recommended to his aficionados.

NB: the film was turned into a play three years later.

"Intimate Strangers" is a very well done cinema. In keeping with the title, it is a strange and intimate film. Sandrine Bonnaire plays Anna. She is very seductive and encounters a tax attorney who is mistaken for the psychoanalyst, William, whose practice is next door. Fabrice Luchini plays the tax attorney who is strangely silent during his encounter with this distraught woman. In fact, he is very interested in listening to her personal and sometimes lurid story. The actual psychiatrist, Dr. Monnier, is played well by Michel Duchaussoy. Indeed, Duchaussoy becomes the temporary analyst for Luchini's character. This film is now on DVD. It is one of the best foreign films I have seen. The concept belongs to the writer. The humor is beyond description. Don't let this one slip by. It is a must for serious movie viewers.