Seules les bêtes

A really absorbing and unusual thriller, interconnecting the stories of five people linked to the disappearance of a woman in snowy central France. It takes time to get going but once it does, it's an intriguing and gripping tale, and quite convincingly carried through.

... mix in a dash of coincidence and serve irregularly over ice and heat for a rather unsettling French drama that may well keep you from online chat rooms if you're a...

I really enjoyed this. A slow burn of a story, simmering away just enough to keep you hooked. A portrayal of the isolation and desperation of people wanting to escape their own lives (for all reasons from mundanity to poverty). Some are even so desperate they are happy to lie to themselves if it means they can live in a fantasy world rather than their own. Sad, clever, human, understated. A rare gem.

This thriller is full of surprises. The standout is the actress Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. I last saw her in the Italian movie "Human Capital" in an Italian speaking role, and she gives another amazing performance this time in an entirely French speaking role. She is a very talented actress!

The trick of circular stories or vantage points has been used many times with different levels of success; Akira Kurosawa RASHOMON is perhaps the most famous of all; however in that case there were different points of view (and colours); here the story is constructed with events related to each individual character forming a whodunit. The main problem is that not everything is completely explained; leaving the second story, the most intriguing of the whole, unresolved which makes it perhaps even unnecessary. Still your interest is almost always maintained until the last two twists at the end which seem made to add a last touch of madness and the irony. There is no much that can be said without revealing the mystery. A rich woman disappear in a farmers region and almost every character is related to the events somehow. In brief; it is not a great entertainment but if you are tired of the conventional crap, this one has a lot of surprises.