Alias Betty

This quietly compelling entry from French director Claude Miller was strangely marketed to American international cinema enthusiasts as an edge of your seat thriller. Based on the plot synopsis (best-selling novelist loses son to tragic accident, then crazy mother kidnaps "replacement son" for grieving daughter, then kidnapped boy's unpredictable mother and criminal friends seek to get boy back) I thought this was going to be good, and weird. Instead it was great, and weird, but not the kind of weird I was suspecting. Despite plenty of opportunity to do so, Miller never exploits or sensationalizes any of the intertwining tales of Parisian misfits begotten to misfortune both accidental and of their own making. He takes a meditative, and at times cold, though ultimately intimate look at human relations and diverging theories on what it means to be a mother. The "thrills" emerge from the fact that you never know what these interesting characters are going to do next. Miller pulls no punches. There's no pounding music score, fancy camera tricks, or melodramatic theatrics. The performances are as nuanced and natural as the direction. This is a perfect remedy for those seeking respite from Hollywood thrillers.

This is a beautifully crafted, visually stimulating, intricately plotted humane thriller--yes, all of those things humane. No, it isn't for casual viewing, people don't slam doors and shoot guns every five minutes, and yes, the viewer must be able to read subtitles to understand whats going on, as even the opening flashback happens so quickly and unexpectedly that we wonder if we experience what we just saw.

This is a puzzle film about parenthood, about children surviving in spite of a crazy world, a film contrasting social worlds and attitudes. Typically French in being thoughtful rather than action-oriented, the depictions of an off-kilter parent are all too real--and there are several of them. Not a masterpiece, but well-worth careful watching

I've just seen this film at the Montreal World Film Festival. The plot is very interesting. A deranged mother and her lack of love for her daughter, the daughter and her absolute love for her son, another mother and her distant love for her own son, and a mother's love for an adopted son. Once Betty loses her child, her deranged mother kidnaps a little boy, telling her daughter that she is keeping the boy for friends who are on vacation. We seem to think that we now know the ending. False. The plot thickens and the film ends as it should : nice, smart, a bit violent but also very funny. A very entertaining film. Luck Mervil is new to acting and did a great job.

Sometimes the hardest things are so simple. A lost child is surely irreplaceable, isn't it? Well, that depends on how unconventional you're prepared to be. And if you've got no money but you're left looking after your sugar mommy's house, how to make ends meet? Depends how good a con artist you are. And if your mother presents you with a horribly unwanted gift which you can't return without getting you or her into deep, deep trouble? Maybe it will grow on you. Point of view is everything.

Three people with three problems. But that's just scratching the surface. Mothers, daughters, lovers, husbands, doctors, policemen, smugglers: all of life is here.

Adapted from Ruth Rendell's book "The Tree Of Hands", this French film presents lives less as part of a tree and more as a spider's web. A little tug here leaves a permanent distortion over there and a gap on the far side. Rarely can cinema have produced such a dramatic, amusing yet tense demonstration of the old saw "No man is an island" (though since most of the central protagonists here are female, the well-meaning but philologically-challenged PC lobby might wish for a slight re-phrasing).

With all these "Other Stories" around, there are two obvious potential pitfalls. Switch from story to story too quickly and you just confuse your audience; do it too slowly and they might fail to see the connections. Fortunately this film strikes the perfect balance; admittedly it does this by sacrificing a certain depth of character in some cases, but this simply leaves us wishing this were merely the first installment of a trilogy, or rather, chronologically speaking, the second. It would be interesting to find out how these characters got to where they are now, and, given the way that their actions have such dramatic effects on each others' lives, equally interesting to see how that spider's web changes shape in the future. Given that Betty Fisher herself ends the film about to start a completely new life, anything could happen. 8/10.

When he's at his best,that is to say when his movies deal with childhood/parenthood ("la classse de neige) or the difficult passage from adolescence to adult age ("la meilleure façon de marcher" ,his towering achievement,and "l'effrontée"),Claude Miller makes really strong films.

Whereas his adaptation of Patricia Highsmith ("this sweet sickness" aka "dites-lui que je l'aime")was downright disappointing ,his foray into Ruth Rendell is highly successful.First of all,this novel was tailor-made for him:it's a movie about monstrous love,self-love for the grandmother (a never better Nicole Garcia),painful love for the young mother(Kimberlain) ,absence of love for Seigner's character in a story revolving around children.

Rendell's novels are very complex,involving many characters ,who brush against one another more than they meet ;sometimes,it takes a long time before we know the connection between them.But Miller succeeds brilliantly in his adaptation :he devotes each character a "chapter"

(hence the title) "Betty's story" "Joseph's story" etc.In Rendell's work ,like in Highsmith's ,the frontier between the "culprits" and the "innocents" is very vague and we never know which ones will get away.

Minor critic: the actor playing Alex is not very credible because he's not really the looks of a gigolo.