Intimate Strangers

This is a very clever film with a lot to say about life, death, sex, human relationships, human fragility and loneliness - but it does it all with a wonderfully light hearted touch. Luchini dancing just has to be one of the best scenes - eat your heart out Hugh Grant!! Bonnaire is quite wonderful as Anne, literally blossoming before our eyes, her hair lightening, her skin glowing, her dress changing, becoming lighter and brighter. It seems her accidental psychiatrist does help her. Of course, we never know the full truth - can we believe everything she says - and the device of the windows, so key to the film's turning point, is Hitchcockian in the extreme - vision as deception. The most wonderful insight of this film, though, is that paying taxes and dealing with deep disturbing psychological issues have similar concerns - what do you declare and what do you try desperately to hide? And of course, both actions are undertaken in the name of individuals integrating themselves into society. Another excellent film from Leconte. Just because it is so polished and masterful story telling doesn't mean that it doesn't address other issues that a director such as Rohmer would tackle.

In "Intimate Strangers", a beautiful woman wanders into the office of a meek and unassuming tax consultant mistaking it for a psychiatrist's office. When the tax man realizes the error, the woman has already engaged him and wishes to continue their sessions. This relatively uneventful and mostly conversational drama is all about the symbiotic relationship which follows from the chance encounter and how it changes the lives of the pair of protagonists. The film features finely nuanced performances and penetrating insights into the relationship and little more. Don't expect any extremes of emotion, sex, nudity, or other titillaters as it's all about the interpersonal relationship; no more, no less. Excellent for what it is, "Intimate Strangers" will appeal most to mature audiences into French people flicks. (B)

A woman with marriage problems mistakes a financial adviser for a psychiatrist. She tells him all the secrets of her life, whereas the man has not the strength to tell he's not the person she needs to talk to...

"Confidences trop intimes" is a brilliant film directed by Patrice Leconte, with two big French actors -Fabrice Luchini and Sandrine Bonnaire. The film is an intimate comedy, action is made by good dialogs. There's no boredom at all.

It's an interesting movie which shows a strange relationship growing -maybe the woman understands, later, that she has not found the right person. But she's lonely and needs to talk, at the same time the financial adviser is another lonely person who needs someone who catches him out of a boring life. They have nothing in common, but they are made for each other.

The film has a strong screenplay and is supported by the two leading actors -the scenes are almost always between them. The two characters are very deep, the intensity of their words and of their expression doesn't make you feel that the picture misses something. Because everything it's here. The film is able to picture a situation of everyday life, without developing a foreseen love story... Will the two live a real love relationship? We don't know exactly, there's the same ambiguousness which often dominate the relation between a man and a woman...

A very good movie.

Patrice Leconte has long been one of my favourite directors...his predominate theme is simple...the intimate connection between two lonely strangers; evident in his previous classics....GIRL ON THE BRIDGE (1999) & MAN ON THE TRAIN (2002)...With INTIMATE STRANGERS, his characters meet by mistake...Anna (Bonnaire) is a beautiful, mysterious woman who has suddenly walked through the door of William's (Luchini) office in need of his professional counsel...however, she has mistaken his office for her psychiatrist's & has mistaken William to be a shrink...

INTIMATE STRANGERS is an elegant film...it has the feel & pace of an old noir film of the past where an equally beautiful & mysterious woman walks suddenly into the office of a private eye on some dark, stormy night...Leconte deals with the mind of a woman...revealing her deepest thoughts & desires...teasing us with every appointment between the two strangers...Bonnaire is intense & uninhabited as the distraught Anna & Luchini is the perfect compliment to keep the mode & atmosphere light when it needs to be...

Overall: Gorgeous looking film; camera work is almost excellent, shots over the shoulder seem almost voyeuristic...as if we are eavesdropping or tailing the characters....definitely one of the best Leconte films & one of the best of '04...

It is sometimes difficult to walk the fine line between comedy and banality, as well as hiding all the wire and papier mâché that form the construct known as thriller. "Confidences trop intimes" cunningly avoids the traps of both genres by simply shaking the constructs off, layer by layer.

The movie belongs to a genre, "comédie dramatique" ("dromedy"?) which usually in US movies is reserved for romance "chick flicks". Yet these intimate strangers bring quite a bit more to the screen. It's a pleasant relief to see them saying so much with so little, avoiding those deep memorable lines that are so out of place in the mouth of the common people movies of these kind are supposed to represent.

It's by juxtaposition that Leconte achieves the best effect, by not saying too much and underplaying it, always. In one memorable scene the lonely célibataire glances at the stages of life through his window. Through the glass of the opposite building he sees passion, argument and old age as the seemingly inevitable stages of life. His life seems codified, chosen by others and kept and controlled, in the good and in the bad: add the secret ingredient, an excellent Sandrine Bonnaire, and stir.

The film amusingly deconstructs the myth of psychoanalysis, and thanks to the great empathy of the Luchini character, succeeds in expressing the inexpressible, the desire, the longing sometimes solitary and hopeless. 9/10!