User Reviews

You really have to concentrate in order to follow everything that happens in "Tell No One". Unless you have an attentive friend who comes along with you to the movie theater and who you're counting on to tell you who's who and what's what, then I suggest seeing the film one more time. The question remains, is it worth seeing a second time? Yes but only if you're willing to accept all the contrived goings-on.

Dr. Alexandre Beck and his beautiful wife, Margot, go up to their summer house where she is murdered. Flash forward to eight years in the future when two bodies are discovered near the crime scene and the case is reopened. Meanwhile, Dr. Beck receives an email with an attached video that suggests his wife is still alive. I'm not going to go into all the details of the plot since it would take too long to explain everything that happens. But it seems to me that the problem with the film is that there are too many scenes that don't add up.

One big problem is the identification of Dr. Beck's wife. Her father, a former police inspector, is called upon to identify the body. They take his word for it and no further inquiries are made regarding the the true identity of the victim. As far as I'm aware, eight years ago, DNA testing was in existence so why wasn't a DNA test conducted on the body right then and there? The father's blood could have been used and they would have seen right away that the victim was in fact a prostitute and not Dr. Beck's wife.

Even if you buy that, there's the whole issue of Dr. Beck's pal from the other side of the tracks. He owes the good doctor after Beck diagnoses his son as a hemophiliac and saves him from mistreatment at the hospital. Wherever Dr. Beck goes, his hip-hop friend is there to save him; even at the point where some professional assassins have kidnapped Dr. Beck and tied him up inside a van. Out of nowhere he's plucked from certain doom and some of the assassins are easily dispatched.

Even if you're willing to suspend your disbelief again, there's the whole matter of Margot disappearing for eight years and then suddenly deciding to contact her husband after so much time. We're told that Margot's father tells her that Alexandre is dead. Even if she's in another country (presumably Brazil), is it likely that she never once decided to google information about her husband or the murder case? She would have found out right away that her husband was still alive and that her father had lied to her. Thus she certainly would have then attempted to contact her husband soon after the murder.

While I liked the mogul Neuville as the main antagonist, his character needed a lot more development. That goes double for the shadowy assassins he hires to bump off anyone connected with the murder of his son.

Tell No One is an absorbing film and keeps you on the edge of your seat to the end. But when all the loose ends are tied up, it doesn't add up. Nonetheless, if you're willing to be a little forgiving as to the plot contrivances, you will find this film to be highly entertaining.

Guillaume Canet's thriller opens on one of those naturalistic dinner party scenes: all glasses clinking and laughter and dialogue just a pitch below hearing. Yet this is a misleading beginning for a film that progresses into a thoroughly surprising and superior tale of a husband's desperate search for his seemingly dead wife.

Canet executes the set-up for his tale beautifully, placing his couple stark naked, lakeside, and under the moonlight to emphasize the sheer indulgence of their love. Then with little dialogue he changes the tone from romanticism, to blinding horror as Alexandre (Francois Cluzet) hears a scream and tries in vain to save his wife Margot (Josee Croze) but is beaten over the head by her attacker.

The casting of this couple was crucial as for all its twists and turns what follows is essentially their love story; and neither Cluzet nor Croze disappoint-the latter possessing a perfect vulnerable quality (akin to Naomi Watts in 'King Kong'). However, it is to Cluzet that we owe such an absorbing tale of grief and that false friend: memory.

As we flash forward eight years he conveys sometimes only through his eyes the ever-present grief ready to resurface as soon as his wife's name is mentioned. And, this being a thriller her name is mentioned pretty quickly in the form of an email, plunging the audience into a taut whodunit/what really happened/who's hiding something tale, the answer being of course everyone. And what a terrific supporting cast we are treated with: Margot's father (Andre Dussollier) effortlessly conveys equal parts frustration and resolute duty; while one cut to Jean Rochefort's brooding and wrinkled face alerts the audience to all the pain of his past. Kristin Scott Thomas is possibly even more captivating in French and her poise and cheekbones seem to be a natural marriage with the language and Parisian backdrop. . Canet uses this midsummer Paris to his full advantage to turn up the heat on his fevered search, notably in a touching scene where Alex is racing through the sweltering streets with a giant dog.

"An innocent man" declares Alex's lawyer "does not run". (What-has she not seen 'The Fugitive'?) In any case thank goodness in this circumstance he does as these provide the most compelling scenes in which even Alex crossing a motorway becomes a thing of beauty.

What keeps us gripped though, is that we actually care about these characters and their fate-about what really happened that night (which is possibly why I put up with a slightly indulgent confession scene), and despite the fact that this thriller utterly surpassed most of the usual Hollywood offerings; I found myself craving what Tinsel Town does best: a happy ending.

**** 4/5

the second half really falls apart. Too many plot holes, another of those stories where a very interesting scenario is constructed only to have a convoluted, far-fetched & at times absurd ending simply because the movie can't find a realistic way to put things together (or one which wont have the silly happy ending). I found so many questionable situations: SPOILER ALERT

1. Wouldn't the bad guy had been suspicious from Day 1 since his hired thugs never came back to him to report their success? 2. Shouldn't the wife have known her husband was alive from the news? She was really fully alert & unharmed. Especially since she knew her dad was scheming this elaborate hoax. 3. No one else saw the body? 4. Can a police officer really believe a person would allow himself to be hurt enough to be in a coma for 3 days to avert suspicion? 5. A sister remains mum despite the wife's 'murder' when she could have a crucial info? And why involve the sister really, why couldn't the father have taken the pics?? After all this was after she had killed the guy, so why involve anybody else who will be suspicious immediately! 6. And how did the wife set up an untraceable email account? 7. And really wouldn't the info with that kid come to light during the inquest? Like, we are letting this kid off the hook since he was sleeping with this lady (even if it was made up)? After all, a very prominent guy has been murdered, one would think the reason exonerating the prime suspect would hardly remain hidden. And so on...really nothing adds up in the end...

So How did Margot's father, an older and not very strong man, do the following in one night: shoot two men; bury two male bodies; find a slew of dead animals; locate a dead prostitute; pose her body near the lake; remove his daughter to safety; pull Alex Beck from the lake etc, etc. It's just not possible! This is an interesting and intriguing movie although I believe far too much was going on within the plot--too many coincidences--too many women who looked alike and therefore added to the confusion. This is an interesting movie although I believe far too much was going on within the plot--too many coincidences-- So How did Margot's father, an older and not very strong man, do the following in one night: shoot two men; bury two male bodies; find a slew of dead animals; locate a dead prostitute; pose her body near the lake; remove his daughter to safety; pull Alex Beck from the lake etc, etc. It's just not possible! This is an interesting and intriguing movie although I believe far too much was going on within the plot--too many coincidences--too many women who looked alike and therefore added to the confusion. This is an interesting movie although I believe far too much was going on within the plot--too many coincidences--

Superior French - made dramatisation of the successful Harlan Coben thriller novel (which I hadn't read before-hand; my wife has and she tells me the film is true to the book). Of course the outrageous twists and turns of the plot take it out of everyday reality and it's not hard to see the Alex Beck character as a descendant of the Cary Grant / James Stewart type employed by Hitchcock as Mr Average whose world is turned inside out by "dark forces". However the direction is hardly backward-looking and pacy and involving. Francois Cluzet is first rate in the lead, even with an at times uncanny resemblance to Dustin Hoffman, and his excellent playing carries the film. He's particularly impressive in the chase sequence and climactic reunion scene with his wife. This scene is especially well filmed, the dream like figure of the man's long-lost wife materialising from out-of-focus background as the story turns full circle and ends, if not happily, then satisfyingly. The rest of the cast support admirably - unusually the scariest "heavy" on Beck's trail is depicted as a sadistic vulture-like female who clearly loves her work and then Rasputin-like takes an age to die when she finally gets hers. I enjoyed the unusual transposition of the tale to France as one wearies of chases through American malls with hordes of gas - guzzling US cop cars mee-mawing all over the place. The action is correspondingly crisper, cooler and clearer and all the better for it. Perhaps being based on a 400 page novel, some of the extraneous characters could have been edited out as I found their proliferation confusing at times; maybe the big-name author had some sort of JK Rowling-type approval to stay true to the novel source. The traditional "twist in the tale" ending plays well and there's also a great on - foot chase involving a particularly hairy crossing by the Clouzet character over a rush hour motorway. A shot in the arm for an ailing genre. More please.

This very powerful and high energy film combines American style thrills with European quality acting. The protagonist is perfectly believable in type of role Alfred Hitcock used to cast Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart in - an everyman trapped in a nightmare and finding an inner strength he never knew he had to allow him to become a hero. Ironically, in the end we realize that he was never the hero of the story at all, that in fact he has been nothing more than a puppet in a play managed by other, apparently peripheral characters. That "ah-ha" moment is well worth the price of admission. My only complaint is that the film struggles a little too hard to incorporate the plot elements of what was apparently a very complex novel, so that near the end it seems to speed up to try to tie together all the many different loose ends. As a consequence some people may not fully grasp the full complexity of the very busy plot at the first sitting. Nevertheless, it is a very powerful feature film which fully deserves a big, splashy Hollywood style promotion in the U.S.

This is an old fashioned mystery story. We don't see many of these today. There's no modern folding, self-reference, or what is often called irony. Not in the container.

But because it is a detective story, the predecessor of modern folding is present, the detective being both our representative and a character.

The game here is familiar: man discovers that some significant event involving his wife never happened, and his life changes now as he tries to find the truth. Its more elaborate than most in having three or even four communities of watchers. These things all depend on multiple watchers because the detective game is one of watching. (There's some internet watching but its subdued.) A fold is that in the original template, you know who the watchers are. Here we have to discover who they are and how they fit in.

The thing that was most interesting to me is how the characters were introduced. Its why this is so remarkable. The normal form, and not just in the detective story, is that you first let the reader know something about the nature of the world you will see, then you make it clear who the characters are. This is essential because most of the dynamics of the genre depend on you setting assumptions at this early phase which are then confounded. Finally, you start weaving the story in earnest.

Here, what's done is that the characters are introduced in a way that is confusing. We have to work to figure out who is who and we are never sure. It pulls us further into the story because that work entangles us in what happens next; we need to know more just to know who these people are, in addition to understanding what is happening.

We've seen this before of course; its not new. But its done well, and we spend lots of time untangling knots.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

''' but Tell No One is quite an effective policier. It was made more enjoyable for me when the likes of Nathalie Baye, Jean Rochefort and Brigitte Caitillon popped up seemingly out of the blue but playing slightly more than cameos. Francois Cluzot carries the bulk of the movie as the pediatrician whose childhood sweetheart turned wife is the victim of a serial killer. He copes after a fashion with the help of Kristin Scott-Thomas until eight years later when he begins to think his wife may still be alive. This is just the start of a labyrinthine series of events that rack up the tension. Andre Dussollier is also on hand as is the director himself. Though it differs in plot this is the best French policier since 36, Quai des Orfevres (Olivier Marchal who directed the former is also in this as an actor) and highly recommended.

First off, if you want to make a good film, don't cram all your exposition into the last 10 minutes. The viewer is expected to be bewildered for nearly two hours, only to have Margo's father explain everything to Alex very late in the film. To make matters worse, the scriptwriter decided it wasn't enough to have the basic mystery solved, but adds in a completely unnecessary murder that we knew nothing about (involving Alex's father!).

There's some serious motivation issues with characters also. Margo's father's choices don't seem to make sense once the film is over. Why didn't he just kill Philippe's father and be done with it? Instead, a complicated plot to obscure the truth is concocted, but one which ensures that everyone will be in physical jeopardy for years (including the completely innocent photographer, who gets murdered by Philippe's father's thugs). Although Alex is a doctor (whom one would think is relatively bright), he chooses to flee the police, during which he not only endangers his own life, but those whom he involves in a nasty pile-up on the freeway. Why was Margo's friend so keen on keeping her promise to Margo, once all the crap hits the fan for Alex? And are we to think that Margo's father would rather kill himself rather than go to prison? What about his wife? Did he consider her wishes? Those are some of the main problems.

Then there are some nasty details, like: why was her father there the night of her faked death? How did he get a hold of the junkie's body on such short notice and get it back quickly in order to bury it with the other two? Alex's friend Bruno seems over-eager to be part of the mayhem, in which he and his friends have to kill for Alex, notwithstanding the perceived debt he owes Alex for saving his son's life. What good would the photos of Margo do? They don't implicate Philippe at all. And why would Margo have the safety deposit box key handy that night for her would-be abductors to take? Did I miss some other things? Probably. Minor irritations of mine include the fact that although Alex is a doctor, he smokes like a fiend. Which makes his marathon run away from the police even that more impressive. Also, when he is riding in the convertible with his lawyer, neither of them is wearing a seat belt. How bright could they be?