avik-basu1889
'Tell No One' is a French thriller based on the novel of the same name written by Harlan Coben. It is directed by Guillaume Canet and stars François Cluzet, Marie-Josée Croze, Kristin Scott Thomas and others. Margot and Alex are a happily married couple who have been close to each other since their childhood. But Margot gets abducted and subsequently killed while they were on their annual ritualistic vacation at Lake Charmaine. Eight years after this incident, Alex suddenly starts receiving mysterious e-mails from anonymous sources and a complex mystery follows.When I watched the film, I did it without having the knowledge that it is based on an American crime novel. But while watching it, I noticed that the film has a very American style of storytelling. It is a very fast paced thriller quite reminiscent of the works of David Fincher. It certainly doesn't have the slow, brooding, quality that you tend to associate with European cinema. So after watching it when I became aware of the fact that the source material is an American novel, it made sense to me. I think there is one basic difference between a good thriller and a fantastic one. A good thriller is a film which might not have the most unpredictable storyline, but still manages to keep the viewer enthralled and hooked. But a fantastic/great thriller is one which has a great style of storytelling which keeps the viewer engaged throughout coupled with an unpredictable storyline which keeps the viewer guessing(considering he/she has not read the original book if it is based on one). Without a doubt,as far as I am concerned, 'Tell No One' belongs to the latter category. This film has properly developed characters, the romance between Alex and Margot seemed completely convincing and the intricate details of the storyline holds up even after retrospective analysis which isn't always the case when you're talking thrillers.The primary element of the film is the romance between Alex and Margot. I believed that Alex would not have been able to fully get over Margot after her death, so when things start happening in relation to Margot after 8 years, I completely bought that Alex would jump in and try to get to the bottom of things. I thing unpredictability of human nature is also a theme in the film. You expect certain characters to act in a certain manner, but they turn out to be something completely different.The screenplay and direction has to be admired extensively. When the original story in the novel is as complicated as this, the screenplay becomes essential for making it film-compatible. The combination of the screenplay written by Guillaume Canet and Philippe Lefebvre along with the direction by Guillaume Canet works so well, that the film instead of collapsing due to its complexity,ends up reveling in its complexity. The film beautifully progresses and different layers get peeled off in an organic manner. In many films the ultimate explanation is executed in a forced way. But Canet brilliantly uses this explanation scene in a way which is contextually relevant and plausible. The last shot of the film is very sweet and satisfying. I also loved the cinematography in the film, specially in the forest scenes with the green of the trees and grasses filling up the shots.The acting is absolutely flawless from all concerned. François Cluzet (the Dustin Hoffman lookalike) commands the screen as Alex,the protagonist. Another actor who deserves the special mention is Kristin Scott Thomas. She is British, but she effortlessly plays a French woman and makes it as convincing as ever.The only problem that I have with the film is that there is one chase scene which involves a few set pieces. Now these set pieces are brilliantly shot and directed. But they just felt a little out of place and sort of inconsistent with the mood and the tone of the rest of the film.But apart from that minor reservation, I really loved 'Tell No One'. It is a tightly paced, unpredictable film which keeps the viewer guessing. Hugely Recommended.
Andy Goss
Visually this film is a delight, the set pieces are marvellously realistic, and the cinematography manages to be both unobtrusive and impressive. The editing is tight, or as tight as the script will allow, and every opportunity has been taken to lend visual interest and substance to scenes that would otherwise be bland. The actors work hard to inject life into underdeveloped characters, but they are given little opportunity by the script to rise above the formulaic. Tight editing and fluid direction keep the ball rolling although we are as much in the dark as to what is going on as is Beck, the paediatrician hero. Eight years ago Beck survived an attack in which his wife was killed, or so he thought, but now he is receiving emails from her, and other peculiar things are happening. He, and we, would like to know what is going on. We do find out, in the end. But it is as if the writers were so carried away writing action that they forgot that there has to be a story, and that the story has to have a back-story, there has to be a scenario under which all this frenetic and random seeming activity can be seen as serving some dramatic and structural purpose. So they tacked on a lengthy, tedious, and confusing sequence of intercut scenes in which All Is Revealed. Now we know Who, and How, but Why is never convincingly conveyed. Beck is well portrayed by François Cluzet, and Kristin Scott Thomas gives the secondary character of his lawyer the kind of dimensionality that a lead role would warrant. Most of the characters are not really that interesting, and the only one who is becomes collateral damage, to no great dramatic purpose, as an obvious plot mechanism. For this viewer, at least, the film began to go downhill from this point, I no longer cared all that much about the outcome. I made two guesses as to what lay behind the mystery, both wrong. What emerges is in the event, not trivial, but banal. There are holes in the plot, but those I can work with. What in the end I came away with was a sense of hollowness, of waste. The film left me depressed, and I had bad dreams that night. A lot of people will like this film. There is a lot to admire about that way it was made. I just wish they had used a better, properly developed script.
ElMaruecan82
No one saw Guillaume Canet, the handsome Frenchy from "The Beach", coming but his adaptation of Harlam Coben's "Tell No One" took everyone by surprise, revealing one of the most promising directorial talents of his generation. Like, USA has now Ben Affleck, France had Guillaume Canet.And reviewing "Tell No One" can't do without praising the well-crafted directing job: the long extended shots, a clever editing showing you exactly what you need to know at the right moment, a sensitive use of flashbacks, effective close-ups on computer screens, on men watching and being watched, to better accentuate the paranoid feeling and last but not least, a breath-taking foot chase taking us from the top of a building to Paris' peripheral road and concluding in the Clignancourt market. This is "The French Connection" and "Marathon Man" in one sequence that certainly earned Canet his César (French Oscar) for Best Director.My mention of "Marathon Man" isn't fortuitous; it takes me back to the performance of François Cluzet who, like American audiences pointed out, shares an uncanny resemblance with Dustin Hoffman. Cluzet is the one who carries the film, and this is saying a lot with the whole star-studded cast surrounding him, from Guillaume Canet himself as the son of a powerful man played by movie veteran Jean Rochefort, the kind of respectable figures à la 'Noah Cross', from Nathalie Baye as the influential lawyer, to François Berléand and Kristin Scott Thomas who shares a lesbian relationship with Cluzet's sister in the fill, it's a whole spot-the-star game that could have damaged the film's credibility a serious drama. But accusing "Tell No One" of 'commerciality' by insertion of prestigious names in the credits, would unfairly overlook the two real strengths of the film besides the directing: Cluzet's performance and the writing.Granted Cluzet has never been regarded on the same level as a Gérard Depardieu or a Jean Reno, and this is probably due to his ordinary-looking appearance. But for the film, it's perfect. Cluzet plays Alexandre Beck, a doctor married with his childhood love Margot (Marie-Josée Croze). During a pivotal night, after a romantic skin-dipping in a pond, an argument starts, she swims ashore and while he climbs the ladder after hearing her scream. We only know the aftermath from a poignant flashback, Margot's body was discovered dead, severely mutilated, she was recognized by her father, a cop played by Andre Dussolier, and then cremated. There was no explanation about how Back didn't fall in the pond, but Margot was dead for sure, until a mysterious mail lead Alexandre to believe that there are some loose ends in the 'official version'.The quest for the truth is paralleled by eavesdropping moments indicating that Alexandre isn't the only one to believe his wife is still alive, and the Police join the game when one of Alexandre's friends is brutally killed. Naturally, Alexandre is suspected of two murders, including his wife, and he has no other choice than running away from policemen and his mysterious observers, seeking some providential assistance from his lawyer or a thug who conveniently carries the right weapons, any help is welcome for Alexandre if he can reach his wife. And in this nightmarishly paranoid dog-and-cat-and-mouse chase, Cluzet finds the perfect note as a no-nonsense man who's both passive and active in a way that inevitably our sympathy empathy, even more in the powerful moments where he has clear evidence of his wife being alive.Cluzet, who won the Best Actor César, for the role, had his career revived as a Travolta's post "Pulp Fiction" period, becoming a sure value of French Cinema, starring in the most popular recent movies, including "Untouchables" and it's a credit to Guillaume Canet to have contributed to that. But there's more than the acting, the script also contributes to balance the effects of obligatory formula, thanks to a clever trick consisting on duplicating each figure which fits a story that opens with a mistaken identity. One of the thugs looks like Alexandre, you have a good cop and a bad one, one believes in Alexandre's guilt since police found out the evidence in his house, but like Berleand (the wiser cop) asked: why would a man who made a perfect murder be so silly to keep the gun and wait patiently for the police to come at him? A similar moment occurs when the prosecutor states that Alexandre signed his own guilt by running away, an opinion immediately dismissed by the lawyer. The film respects our intelligence by putting its own elements into perspective.Having said that, there's no need to details the plot, which hides more revelations and twists that you'll ever expect, but the way Canet brilliantly and confidently pulls the strings of our nerves to assemble each piece of the puzzle one by one until the climactic revelation is a masterstroke a few directors achieved in a whole career. That's the kind of thrillers where nothing is hazardous, each element, no matter how futile it seems, Alexandre saving one little boy, a smile at a cyber room, anything serves the plot without feeling forced, and even after a second viewing, you start noticing new details of this multi-layered experience. Naturally, being an adaptation of an American novel, from a director who was obviously nourished by American classics, "Tell No One" might be accused of mimicking American cinema, a criticism often held against French movies. But no one can deny the authentic Parisian vibes you get from the film, and no one can accuse of copycatting one of the first films to use Internet technology as a significant plot device. "Tell No One" is indeed THE French thriller tailor-made for the 2000's and being a commercial success, doesn't make it 'commercial' for all that. And I left the theater with a great satisfaction, after a heart-pounding and emotionally satisfying experience, thinking in myself, that's the kind of movie that makes me love movies.
