User reviews

Ruth Rendell's novel, A Tree of Hands, was, as most of her work is, brooding, obsessive, and menacing. In Claude Miller's hands, the book has become altogether expatriated. It is now chic, extremely clever, and quite amoral. In short, very French. Briefly, the lives of a successful novelist, bereft of her only child who has just died in a fall, and her mad mother, intersect with those of another mother, a barmaid, who neglects and abuses her child, another little boy, and her taciturn boyfriend. The film cuts briskly back and forth between these two worlds, from the novelist's lovely house in a wealthy Paris suburb, to the bar-resto, hangout for pimps and dealers, where the other woman is employed. It is driven by the mad logic of the novelist's mother and Miller's strength is the insidious way he inveigles the audience into accepting that logic as sane. This is certainly not Rendell, but it is a lot of fun--think a tighter, tauter, altogether more stylish Talented Mr Ripley. The three actresses who play the three mothers jointly won "Best Actress" award at the Montreal Film Festival where the film had its North American premiere.

This quietly compelling entry from French director Claude Miller was strangely marketed to American international cinema enthusiasts as an edge of your seat thriller. Based on the plot synopsis (best-selling novelist loses son to tragic accident, then crazy mother kidnaps "replacement son" for grieving daughter, then kidnapped boy's unpredictable mother and criminal friends seek to get boy back) I thought this was going to be good, and weird. Instead it was great, and weird, but not the kind of weird I was suspecting. Despite plenty of opportunity to do so, Miller never exploits or sensationalizes any of the intertwining tales of Parisian misfits begotten to misfortune both accidental and of their own making. He takes a meditative, and at times cold, though ultimately intimate look at human relations and diverging theories on what it means to be a mother. The "thrills" emerge from the fact that you never know what these interesting characters are going to do next. Miller pulls no punches. There's no pounding music score, fancy camera tricks, or melodramatic theatrics. The performances are as nuanced and natural as the direction. This is a perfect remedy for those seeking respite from Hollywood thrillers.

In the case of Alias Betty, I doubt that life would imitate art...what do I mean by this...well, crimes are committed everyday...murders, thefts, kidnappings...but do we ever feel empathetic with the criminal who commits these acts...in a word, NO! In this foreign film by Claude Miller, he managed to weave several story lines that showed dysfunction to the max. It was a bit difficult to feel any empathy at first with the main character's emotional pain as the character seemed so dispassionate. As the story evolved it was plain to see that the horrific crime committed by the character's mother in hopes of easing her child's pain, or perhaps her own might have been the best solution for all involved. Perhaps the moral of this story is that one doesn't have to be the birth parent to provide a loving and secure home for a child...anyone can be a parent, but not everyone knows how to parent. This film was extremely well done and will leave the viewer with much to think about.

Sometimes the hardest things are so simple. A lost child is surely irreplaceable, isn't it? Well, that depends on how unconventional you're prepared to be. And if you've got no money but you're left looking after your sugar mommy's house, how to make ends meet? Depends how good a con artist you are. And if your mother presents you with a horribly unwanted gift which you can't return without getting you or her into deep, deep trouble? Maybe it will grow on you. Point of view is everything.

Three people with three problems. But that's just scratching the surface. Mothers, daughters, lovers, husbands, doctors, policemen, smugglers: all of life is here.

Adapted from Ruth Rendell's book "The Tree Of Hands", this French film presents lives less as part of a tree and more as a spider's web. A little tug here leaves a permanent distortion over there and a gap on the far side. Rarely can cinema have produced such a dramatic, amusing yet tense demonstration of the old saw "No man is an island" (though since most of the central protagonists here are female, the well-meaning but philologically-challenged PC lobby might wish for a slight re-phrasing).

With all these "Other Stories" around, there are two obvious potential pitfalls. Switch from story to story too quickly and you just confuse your audience; do it too slowly and they might fail to see the connections. Fortunately this film strikes the perfect balance; admittedly it does this by sacrificing a certain depth of character in some cases, but this simply leaves us wishing this were merely the first installment of a trilogy, or rather, chronologically speaking, the second. It would be interesting to find out how these characters got to where they are now, and, given the way that their actions have such dramatic effects on each others' lives, equally interesting to see how that spider's web changes shape in the future. Given that Betty Fisher herself ends the film about to start a completely new life, anything could happen. 8/10.

This is a beautifully crafted, visually stimulating, intricately plotted humane thriller--yes, all of those things humane. No, it isn't for casual viewing, people don't slam doors and shoot guns every five minutes, and yes, the viewer must be able to read subtitles to understand whats going on, as even the opening flashback happens so quickly and unexpectedly that we wonder if we experience what we just saw.

This is a puzzle film about parenthood, about children surviving in spite of a crazy world, a film contrasting social worlds and attitudes. Typically French in being thoughtful rather than action-oriented, the depictions of an off-kilter parent are all too real--and there are several of them. Not a masterpiece, but well-worth careful watching

"Alias Betty", a mediocre French flick which tells of a woman whose son dies and is replaced with a kidnapped kid by her mother and the ramifications of same and examinations of the goings-on in the lives of the people connected to the principals, this flick is a choppy and bland bit of nervous monotony and little more. Combine that with a subtitle a second such that it's difficult to study facial expressions and mannerisms and "Alias Betty" simply isn't worth the effort required. Recommended only for French film enthusiasts, French speakers, and fans of the principals and Miler's work. (C+)

I can now understand why authors feel leery about letting screenwriters adapt a novel. First of all, a full length novel doesn't translate well to the screen. There are too many nuances and too many details, that trying to do them all, will humble the most talented scribe.

Take the case of the novel in which this film is based. The Tree of Hands by the magnificent British master of suspense, Ruth Rendell. The adaptation has nothing to do with the brilliant narrative she gave us with this novel. If anyone wants to see the best adaptation of a Rendell book, I would recommend to see Claude Chabrol's, "La Ceremonie".

Not only was that a superior film, but it reveals the essence of the book with little effort.

The problem with "Alias Betty" is Mr Miller's scenario. He has changed the basic premise of the book into something else. Now, don't get me wrong, it is a better film than some of the mediocrity coming from France lately.

The big problem is with the character of the mother. Nicole Garcia is out of her range here. Not only that, one never understands what's wrong with her, even though she appears to be schizophrenic. She's a loose cannon up to no good. In the novel she's even more so.

Betty is ambiguously played by Sandrine Kiberlain, which in a way, suits the character better. She is the only sane person around, even though she is unable to control the mother.

The minor side plots add to the story, but everything at the end is resolved so easily that one wonders if anything like that is possible in life. The films end in an upbeat note, even though it has nothing to do with the original novel.

Look at the French title. "Histoire" means story and, as with the English word, implies all story's synonyms. "Histoire," then, can serve as a perhaps gentler "lie." So, "Betty Fisher and Other Stories:" It's a film whose plot is constructed of linked plots, a film in which strangers' stories intersect in ways we've come to think of as Altmanesque. But also, more intriguingly, "Betty Fisher and Other Lies:" Everybody's story involves a lie. Or everybody is a lie.

I booted up here, just now, fearing I'd only pan the film. The round-robin plot relies on glaring improbabilities and deux ex machina transpositions. It's so strongly plotted, I'd thought to say, it could probably survive one of those English language remakes, and weakly enough drawn in many of its characters that a such a remake might stand a rare chance of bettering it. Nonetheless, make a project of finding the "lie" in each character's "histoire." Which characters tell lies? Which lie to themselves, which to others, which to both? Is any character totally sincere? Is any character pure lie?

I'm not entirely sure whether it's the case of an actor stranded in an outrageously unbelievable plot, or of an actor acting for all she's worth to realize that plot, but Betty's plain-faced, ever-stricken, ever-lost expression, more than anything else in the film, stays with me. Though one needs a little French to appreciate it, "Alias Betty" may actually be a quite complex translation.

I've just seen this film at the Montreal World Film Festival. The plot is very interesting. A deranged mother and her lack of love for her daughter, the daughter and her absolute love for her son, another mother and her distant love for her own son, and a mother's love for an adopted son. Once Betty loses her child, her deranged mother kidnaps a little boy, telling her daughter that she is keeping the boy for friends who are on vacation. We seem to think that we now know the ending. False. The plot thickens and the film ends as it should : nice, smart, a bit violent but also very funny. A very entertaining film. Luck Mervil is new to acting and did a great job.

It starts out preposterous but interesting, but quickly becomes only preposterous. The death of a child, then the theft of another are used as bald plot devices. Neither of these events are allowed to resonate sufficiently. (In fact, the film finds all four year old boys interchangeable.) Consequently, it has almost no emotional weight. I gave this film a five. I usually only give a five, or lower, to films I can't finish, but here I wish to discourage any who might be tempted.

Set in France, and Paris, but not the usual one. Instead, we see the suburbia, and the projects. A rich woman, famous by a best-seller novel talking about her experience on NY, gets her strange mother at the airport, with her 4-year old son. Strange? A lot! Not crazy, but almost... The boy dies, and strange as she is she tries to mend her daughter's loss with a substitute: she kidnaps a boy of the same age and fit from a woman living on a project, almost a whore. One other story! More will follow, all nicely intertwined. Nice characters, the mothers, all of them, the lovers, all of them...

This is the second adaptation of a Ruth Rendell book that I have seen. The first was the glossy but creepily empty and tiresome La Ceremonie, in which Claude Chabrol's visceral hatred of the bourgeoisie led him to that bloody climax. Claude Miller has done a satisfying version of The Tree of Hands, with a solid script and some excellent performances. Nicole Garcia as Betty's mother is so compelling, so dangerous in her impulsiveness and inability to see the consequences of her actions. I forgot about the stiff chatelaines she usually plays when I saw her look coolly at the little boy lying on the deck, then up at the open window out of which he'd fallen, then look again at the boy while calculating the benefit to her of the boy's death. Truly frightening.

Mathilde Seigner as the single mom whose son is getting in the way of her partying, and Edouard Baer as the gigolo who can hardly believe his luck when he sells a house that isn't his (such an engaging thief!) are both good. Sandrine Kiberlain as Betty is stronger than I am used to seeing her--she often plays bleak loners who resort to prostitution as a quick fix (A Vendre; En avoir, ou pas)--here she has inner resources that allow her to combat her crazy mother, her prying ex-husband and the police kid-hunt.

Miller has a problem that defeats him in the end: how to reconcile the demands of the plot while giving us the fully-realized characters. The end is rushed--I don't blame him for this--and serves to tie up loose ends only. If A and B are shot, then C can make a get away. Still, for the acting, it's one of the best noirs of recent years.

Betty Fisher & Other Stories darts along at a merry old rate, its titular tales moderately interesting in the long run and the film does pass the time in a pleasingly enough manner. In, what certainly feels like, the long run and somewhat immense back catalogue of multi-stranded films interlocking and connecting with a common thematic, Betty Fisher's and her significant "others" is most unquestionably lacking a rawer bite and a more pleasing common thread. Placed into perspective, something like Altman's 1993 film Short Cuts flew past and was a lot longer; Betty Fisher plods along at its own pace and just has you constantly feel 'aware' that numerous tales are going on and that they're going to interlock at some point. Where Altman's opus was a more involving, and felt far less ordained, effort studying the nature of human beings and both mankind's reactions and attitudes towards death; loss and spiritual companionship, Claude Miller's 2002 film sideswipes a glance at motherhood or, specifically, parenthood. In short, it's an interesting enough little drama which doesn't necessarily uproot the trees it thinks it does, but does enough.

Observe, if you will, one of the stories therein Miller's piece; a short about a young boy named José living with his mother-plus-male guardian in a rather downtrodden part of a big city. As José sits idly in one scene, unguarded, in front of a television with a collection of other tots, his mother makes love to guardian Francois (Mervil) in a room down the hall and the screen displays a performance by an ice-skater doing their routine. The underlying issues formulate, one of which is more broadly linked to that of how a parent with a child decides to spend quality time at home with it when there are others out in the world whom, for some tragic reason, have lost a child and would no doubt do a great deal to try and recall the opportunity at garnering access to the sort of time José's father has available to him. Secondly, after an idea in regards to the differing attitudes to parenting, the notion of what's playing on the television screen is hinted at as content which could very well be anything; the images captured by way of a collective gaze belonging to that of José and the other kids whom watch on with a stagnant awe at subject matter which is unguarded by those in charge, and might very well have seen them exposed to any kind of imagery.

A second adult whom features prominently is the titular Betty, played by Sandrine Kiberlain; a character whose past tragedy in life involves the subjection to a mentally ill mother whilst young and the injuries she suffered at the hands of such a woman. Now grown up, with mother Margot (Garcia) now appearing on the straighter and more narrow having darted over to Spanish tourist spots on the off occasion, she lives as an author in the same urban locale with her very young son Joseph – the film informing us that it will now be providing us with "Joseph's story", and that in itself just somehow manages to set an ominous beginning. Our suspicions ring true, and Margot is responsible for one last slice of agony which deeply embeds itself into poor Betty's life; their bickering downstairs and consequent inability to properly lock down Joseph's room in the evening results in the child clambering where one mustn't clamber before falling to serious injury later resulting in death. Between Betty's rightfully aggrieved reaction, Margot suggests the kidnapping of another boy to fill the void.

The aforementioned José is the second child whose "story" we observe, the film's attitude as a piece trying to reflect ideas, content and focus onto its child characters becoming more obvious; José being a young boy out with his suave and fast-talking father, a boy whom must pause with him as he chats or flirts with women out in public before venturing off to that apartment housing said girlfriend; something José must again silently suffer through because of the actions of a guardian. Crudely tied up into all of this is a muddled sub-plot not thematically concurrent to that of the rest of it to do with a young Lothario named Alex (Baer), a man whom gets involved in a real-estate scam and must do what he does to escape a poorer than you'd expect existence. Francois, meanwhile, is trying to find José following the taking of the boy and everybody including José's mother gets mixed up with everybody else as Alex tries to woo her himself.

When we observe González Iñárritu's 2006 film Babel, we find common-ground in the reoccurring theme of youngsters underestimating the powers therein their own hands that they most certainly possess; a bolt action rifle in the physical sense on one strand and a more metaphysical item in that of brooding sexuality on the other coming to formulate the lives of, or predominantly that of, adults. Betty Fisher and her Other Stories seems desiring enough to place children at the core of its content around which adults struggle for firm grips on proceedings, but the film is mostly interesting without ever truly taking off, this multi-stranded approach has worked far better in the past in a number of differing films, and it is remarkable just how little most of it actually amounts to.

The superb acting of Sandrine Kiberlain and Nicole Garcia as apparent foils drives this film into a maze of suspense, illogic, and ironic twists that result in a cinematic synergism rarely achieved. As the plot develops it becomes virtually impossible to determine who is less sane. Betty's role, as portrayed by Kimberlain, is in many ways no more sane that that of Garcia's as her mother. In fact, as the film progresses, one wonders if Betty and her mother are indeed more alike than different. Kiberlain's restrained tolerance and Garcia's divine madness result in the creation of two characters the viewer will not soon forget, if ever.

It looks like a promising movie, and it is to some extent, but I feel like it failed to show us the characters. The acting was good, but not entirely convincing at times. The movie as far as suspense and such is bad. No suspense, no action, no intensity. I didn't really understand some of the movie, and that may be why I didn't enjoy it.

If you like intriguing story lines and (for the most part) a solid movie, this is for you. I won't give anything away, but the ending is a little disappointing. I rate this a 7/10.

In case no one knows (but you should), this is a French movie.

(My rating) R-Some sexual content/language, and brief violence

When he's at his best,that is to say when his movies deal with childhood/parenthood ("la classse de neige) or the difficult passage from adolescence to adult age ("la meilleure façon de marcher" ,his towering achievement,and "l'effrontée"),Claude Miller makes really strong films.

Whereas his adaptation of Patricia Highsmith ("this sweet sickness" aka "dites-lui que je l'aime")was downright disappointing ,his foray into Ruth Rendell is highly successful.First of all,this novel was tailor-made for him:it's a movie about monstrous love,self-love for the grandmother (a never better Nicole Garcia),painful love for the young mother(Kimberlain) ,absence of love for Seigner's character in a story revolving around children.

Rendell's novels are very complex,involving many characters ,who brush against one another more than they meet ;sometimes,it takes a long time before we know the connection between them.But Miller succeeds brilliantly in his adaptation :he devotes each character a "chapter"

(hence the title) "Betty's story" "Joseph's story" etc.In Rendell's work ,like in Highsmith's ,the frontier between the "culprits" and the "innocents" is very vague and we never know which ones will get away.

Minor critic: the actor playing Alex is not very credible because he's not really the looks of a gigolo.

"Betty Fisher And Other Stories" (2001) is an intricately structured mosaic of stories and characters which are tied by various twists of fate; at the beginning it doesn't seem like much, but eventually it all clicks together (it may remind you of Robert Altman's "Short Cuts"). It also shows how people often make wrong decisions based on their limited personal perspective. The film, based on a Ruth Rendell novel, has a moving concept at its center, and a first-rate cast. The standout is Sandrine Kiberlain, who represents the quintessence of French finesse and elegance - and her acting is impeccable, too. **1/2 out of 4.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)

I am somehow reminded in the storyline of this film of the work of mystery novelist Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley; A Game for the Living, etc.) There is the same slightly genteel sense of mystery, realism and a women's point of view that characterizes Highsmith's work. In this case we have a young woman who loses her four-year-old son and then unexpectedly gains another. This intensely personal experience is set in the strata of contemporary French society. There are people in the projects, there is the underworld of petty criminals and prostitutes, and in contrast there are those who live in country homes beyond the suburbs. It is there that Betty, who is a novelist who has just published a best seller, lives.

What director Claude Miller has done with this material is to make it dramatic and to tell the story through the medium of film. That may seem obvious, but how many film makers fail to understand the differences in media and end up with too much talk and too little use of the camera to good effect? Miller shows us commonplace scenes of the projects and contrasts them with the fine homes of the well-to-do. He shows us the long limbs and slightly gawky beauty of his star, Sandrine Kiberlain, who plays Betty, and he contrasts her to the fleshy woman of the streets and bars, Carole Novacki (Mathide Seigner) who is the mother of the boy that Betty gains. He also compares and contrasts the craziness of Betty's mother Margot (played with a fine fidelity by Nicole Garcia) with similar, more muted manifestations in Betty herself. There are interiors of luxury and grace, and those of people living temporary lives in high rise block apartments. One gets a sense of France in the twenty-first century adding texture and place to a woman's story that could happen in almost any city in the world.

The opening scene shows Betty as a little girl on a train with her mother. We are told that her mother is suffering from some compulsive mental illness. We see her stab her daughter in the hand. And then we are fast-forwarded to the present and Betty is with her son Joseph, a scar on her hand, without a husband, going to her house in the countryside. Mother re-enters and we see that she is indeed a mental case, absurdity self-consumed and insensitive. When the boy falls out of a window and dies from the brain damage, Betty is in something close to catatonic shock, but her mother thinks only of her own welfare and seems indifferent to anything else.

And then comes the twist.

I won't describe what Margo does now because it is so interesting to see it unfold. At any rate, Betty is forced to come out of her depression and embrace new love and new responsibilities and to indeed commit a most criminal act, that of running away with another's child. And yet somehow we are made to feel--indeed the events of the plot compels us to feel--that she does the right thing in spite of her initial feelings and in spite of what would normally be right. Later on in the film there is another nice twist when the father of the dead boy returns and wants his share of Betty's success and fortune.

What I think many viewers will appreciate here is that the players look and act like real people, not like people from central casting. Alex Chatrian plays the second little boy and he is a charmer, and beautifully directed by Miller. Kiberlain's laconic and wistful portrayal of a woman with so many choices won her Best Actress awards at the Montreal and Chicago film festivals. She has the kind of beauty that grows on you, yet is not glamorous or glittery, but when she smiles, as she so seldom does in this movie, she lights up the whole screen. And Seigner looks like a common woman, not like a Hollywood star dressed up like a prostitute.

The men are also interesting and also very real. Luck Mervil, who plays Carole's boyfriend, is restrained like a volcano that one knows will eventually go off; and Stephane Freiss, who plays the father of the dead boy, and Edouard Baer who plays a scheming lower-class gigolo, are two very real varieties of men who prey on women.

The ending is witty and satisfying, and I can tell that Claude Miller has seen Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956) starring Sterling Hayden since part of this scene recalls the finale in that American film noir with the money flying out of a suitcase during a chase scene at an airport. Or perhaps that bit is from Rendell's novel (which I haven't read) and it is she who recalls Kubrick's film.

This is a thriller that manages to also be an engaging chick flick, if you will, a commingling of character and story that is in the best tradition of film making, and one of the best films I've seen in months.

Brigitte Fisher (Sandrine Kiberlain) is a successful writer, who adopted the pseudonym of Betty Fischer also as her real name. She is a single mother, and has just moved from New York to France with her son of about four years old to a house in the French suburb. Her mother Margot Fischer (Nicole Garcia) is a deranged woman, who lives in Spain and comes to France for some specific physical and mental exams. Betty has many traumas from her childhood due to the treatment spent by her mother. While talking with Margot in the kitchen, her son falls from the window of his second floor room and after a period in coma in a hospital, the child dies. Betty becomes very depressed and one day her mother arrives at home with a child of approximately same age as her dead grandson. She tells Betty that the boy is the son of a couple friend of her, who had traveled on vacation and asked her to take care of him. Some days later, Betty realizes through the news that her mother had indeed kidnapped the child. However, Betty is very affectionate to the boy. Meanwhile, many parallels stories happen with characters related to Betty and the child, being disclosed to the viewer. With a great screenplay and excellent interpretations, this low budget French movie is excellent. The story has many subplots, alternates drama and mystery, is amoral and not corny, the characters are very well developed and there are no clichés. I watched this movie in an American DVD called `Alias Betty', spoken in French with subtitles in English, and I highly recommended it. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): `Alias Betty' (American DVD)