Confidences trop intimes

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.

"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.

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.

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!

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.