In the well of understanding
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Movie Review: Tell No One, Secrets Live Under The Flesh
Brutality warps the pastoral lull of a romantic evening on an enclosed lake. Dr. Alex Beck (in the person of Francois Cluzet) is assaulted, knocked senseless and awakens to find that his beloved wife Margot (Marie-Josee Croze) has been murdered by unknown assailants harboring inexplicable motives. After eight years, the morose pediatrician still cannot resolve the questions and a thin thread of guilt which gilds his every horizon; but a chance discovery at that same lake begins the unravelling of a skein which implicates him as a prime suspect and throws doubt that a convicted serial killer was responsible.
Frantically, Beck begins searching for clues as to what really happened and trying to push beyond the veil of darkness enshrouding his memory from that night. He speaks with his wife's parents at their annual gathering to memorialize her death, orders a copy of the autopsy and starts piecing elements of the crime together. He receives mysterious emails which show videos of his wife, possibly in the present. Meanwhile, the investigation is reopened and another violent murder concluded. Beck, accused in both cases and forewarned that the police are about to arrest him, makes a spirited escape and is pursued. The action here is realistic and gritty: the chase on foot by the police lacks the artificial quality found so frequently in films, and once can see from the exertions of Cluzet and several principals of the force how vividly shot this segment must have been.
What is most interesting and engaging about this movie is that all of the characters - Bruno, the street punk Beck turns to for aid, the enterprising defense lawyer, the ambitious DA, the varied personalities of the police, the father-in-law - are not overly pretentious and yet fulfill their roles without a hitch. We are not overstuffed with details concerning each and there is no attempt to resolve all the loose strands, as in life such resolution is often not in the offing. The plots and subplots feel real, feel as if each person is simply living their life in the style and manner consistent with where they are in terms of it.
Fortunately, this extends itself to the principals. Cluzet is nuanced and unstudied. Even as bits of truth wrapped in lies stitched with more truths surface, Beck's morality remains constant. Where it is evident that this morality could conflict his own interest and has in the past, he persists. He cannot be other than what he is and that is a huge draw for the viewer.
Unlike other movies of this genre, it brings in an [effective] use of flashbacks and is as much mystery, romance and despair as thriller. Equal measure is given to all parts, and relationship issues - Beck and Margot at the beginning, Beck's sister (Marina Hands) and her lover (Kristin Scott Thomas) in a heightened exchange, the two police detectives, defense attorney Nathalie Baye and the DA, Bruno and his compatriot - are given full vent, forming a verite which injects believability ubiquitously through the film.
At its denouement, we are left with a bygone memory which quietly whispers that though innocence has been corrupted, it is nonetheless not forgotten.
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