Here’s an interesting experiment everyone should try from time to time: go into a movie theater with absolutely no clue what the film’s about. It certainly does away with advance movie-going experiences like hype, expectations and preconceived notions that can always color your perception to the film.
With “Tell No One,” we knew next to nothing. We knew it was French and we’d heard vague word of mouth rumblings that it was supposed to be great (and afterwards, we realize we had briefly skimmed a NYTimes review of it, enough to make the above image seem semi-familiar once we saw it again). We figured it was going to be a French drama of some kind; we literally walked in seconds before it started and didn’t even have a minute to register what kind of him we might be seeing.
Let’s just say the image above isn’t exactly representative of what this film is about. Much to our surprise, “Tell No One” turned out to be an extremely complex, twisting, emotional and very tense thriller. François Cluzet plays gentle pediatrician whose life is torn asunder when one fateful day he and his wife (the very excellent Marie-Josée Croze from “The Diving Bell & The Butterfly”), a childhood sweetheart, are attacked while swimming at their lakeside cottage in what seems like an out of nowhere assault. Trying to rescue his wife, Cluzet is knocked unconscious into the water and everything goes black and silent.
When we the audience awake, and it’s eight years later: we learn that Croze was savagely murdered by a serial killer and Cluzet fell into a coma for three days, but inexplicably was found unconscious and bloodied on the shore. How he got there remains a mystery and one that has left the police unsatisfied all these years. The tragic and horrible past is exhumed, quite literally, when two bodies are discovered buried on the property almost a decade later. To make matters worse, Cluzet is receiving mysterious emails at work that reveal a video someone who may or not be his wife. The bodies stir the police’s loose thread curiosity and soon he’s accused of murder’s we’re not even sure if he’s committed or not. The film soon takes off like a shot getting deeper and deeper intertwined in layer upon layer of intrigue and suspensful revelations (the flick also stars an austere performance by Kristin Scott Thomas).
To say much more is to give away too much and to risk making it sound like cheesy American thriller (and certainly this will be remade one day by Americans and likely will fall painfully flat), but it’s more of an intense noir with so many twists and turns that on paper almost sound ridiculous, but when experienced, they’re incredibly taut and visceral.
You wouldn’t think a French thriller would use or need to have a great soundtrack, but the film has some very interesting and unusual musical moments featuring songs by Otis Redding (“For Your Precious Love“), Groove Armada, a harrowing emotional flashback to Jeff Buckley’s elegiac cover of “Lilac Wine,” and perhaps the oddest use of U2’s “With Our Without You” (strange in the way its used in a dark, haunting manner full of tension). The score by French rock musician Mathieu Chedid (under the name of -M- ) was rather fantastic too (especially that sublime closing credits track) and we’ve admittedly been trying to get our hands on it ever since we saw it this weekend (if you can help point us in the right direction please do; we’d rather not buy it on overly-expensive import if at all possible).
The film also won four César Awards in France last year (their Oscars), including best director, best actor, editing and the aforementioned score by Chedid.
The New York Times, which gave the film an incredibly favorable review compares some of its beats to Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” Howard Hawk’s indelible adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s noir-masterpiece, “The Big Sleep” and says the film is , “beautifully written and acted…a labyrinth in which to get deliriously lost.” Amen. The film’s griping twists and turns are furthermore remarkable for the fact that they are helmed by the young handsome French actor turned filmmaker Guillaume Canet; this is only his second feature film as a director. One of the better pictures of the year. [A]
Trailer: “Tell No One”
