Directed by: Guillaume Canet
Review by: Laura Hawbaker
Hollywood producers would’ve drooled over this script from French filmmaker, Guillaume Canet. Based on the best selling American thriller by Harlan Coben, “Tell No One” has everything American audiences love: a wronged man, sequential clues and a mystery to unravel, a serial killer, a big chase scene, conspiracy, murder, gratuitous nudity, and at the heart of it all the endearing tale of two childhood sweethearts in love. This is American action-thriller gold; in fact, the only art house quality of “Tell No One” is the subtitles.
The film follows Dr. Alexandre Beck (Francois Cluzet, the spitting image of a younger Dustin Hoffman, won a Best Actor Cesar for this role). Alex is a kind-hearted pediatrician who mourns his wife Margot (Marie-Josee Croze), murdered by a serial killer. The plot kick-starts eight years later, when two bodies are found at his wife’s murder location, and Alex—always a suspect in her killing—finds himself under renewed suspicion. He then receives an enigmatic email that may (or may not) prove his wife is alive. The sender may (or may not) even be Margot herself.
Rather then the abstract shadows, chilling tones, and perpetual rain that typify most thriller-mysteries, Canet chooses to awash his film in brightness. Alex is an everyman, maneuvering through the dark conspiracy that surrounds him in the broad light of day. In this hot, sticky summertime, the smallest details are integral. Each is a shard of glass, a piece of the puzzle that makes up the whole: the notches carved into a tree trunk, the shaggy briard Alex lugs around with him, the horses Alex’s sister rides. All are interwoven into the thick of this tangled conspiracy. All are important.
The film’s centerpiece is a jaw-dropping chase sequence through the streets and alleys surrounding the Clignancourt antiques market. The jittery handheld camera follows Alex as he is pursued by the police and builds to a climactic beltway crossing. Alex walks where the cops dare not; a riveting march across eight lanes as cars whip by at seventy miles per hour, culminating in a brutal car crash. What makes the scene all the more impressive (particularly in this digital age) is that it was filmed raw. With just under three hours to capture the scene, there are no computerized cars and no stuntmen. That really is our star, Francois Cluzet, maneuvering in and out of the lanes, dodging a keeled truck as it careens toward him.
A superb supporting cast of authentic characters elevates “Tell No One” to greatness: Francois Berleand is a comfort of stoic wisdom as the cop who, along with his ambitious partner, pursues Alex for the murders he didn’t commit; Andre Dussollier is Margot’s protective father; Kristin Scott Thomas shows off her fluent French as the straight-talker married to Alex’s sister (Marina Hands); Gilles Lellouche is a hard-knocks thug with a coy tattoo that foreshadows his future role in the plot; Jean Rochefort is a powerful politician with a love of equestrian sports… you just know he’s somehow involved with everything… and Canet, who makes a brief but chilling appearance as the politician’s no-good son. Don’t be fooled, each and every one of these characters is integral to the plot, and each is a vital contributor to the conspiracy as it unfolds. When the final confession is made, every piece snaps together perfectly; this is flawless filmmaking.
It’s a very good thing Hollywood didn’t get its hands on “Tell No One.” Jerry Bruckheimer would’ve cast a twenty-something with a chiseled jaw as Alex and a stick thin blonde It-girl as his wife; axed half the supporting cast; streamlined the conspiracy to something more palatable; and glossed the cinematography with digital finishes, mind numbing explosions, and a great many FX shots.
Hollywood would’ve ruined “Tell No One.”
Not that Canet qualifies as an indie arthouse scenester. American audiences would recognize him as the Frenchman fated to lose his girl to Leonard DiCaprio in the distopian expat flick, “The Beach,” and he’s long been a star of the Parisian pop elite. But Cadet brings his uncompromising European vision to “Tell No One.” This film is rawer, tighter, and smarter than it’s Hollywood counterparts, while more mainstream and accessible than it’s French ones. “I’m happy because the film can [succeed] and I hope it will [in the U.S]. We’ll see,” says Canet.
Still, there is the matter of those pesky subtitles, the one hitch in “Tell No One”’s crossover appeal. American’s don’t like to read their movies: I smell a dumbed down Hollywood re-make already in the works at Paramount.
