This French mystery-thriller starts by throwing several characters at the audience, but then unfolds with the elegance of a Hitchcock film, complete with a delectable red herring that kept me wondering for a good part of the time. The tale is told from the view of a crime novelist (Fanny Ardant) being questioned by police. A serial killer, a ghostwriter, a self-loathing hair stylist and her fiancé, and a husband who’s suddenly upped and left are the characters, though some of them may be the same person. There was one unlikely plot coincidence that I noticed, but it doesn’t directly involve the solution to the mystery, whose solution is not ingenious but is clever. Meanwhile, there was enough drama, and occasional humor, in the primary story to keep me involved. Violence is threatened, but not seen.
Audrey Dana as the hairdresser gives a performance that weaves together the disparate threads of her character’s personality, and Dominique Pinon is equally compelling as the male lead, who may be a killer, may be the straying husband, may be a writer gathering material, or may be all of the above. The writer-director, Claude Lelouch, is still best known for his 1966 romance A Man and a Woman, but it’s nice to see him still going strong over four decades later.
IMDB link
viewed 5/21/08 at Ritz 5; reviewed 5/22/08
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