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Private Fears in Public Places

Original title: Coeurs
  • 2006
  • 2h
IMDb RATING
6.9/10
4.2K
YOUR RATING
Private Fears in Public Places (2006)
Theatrical Trailer from IFC Films
Play trailer1:54
1 Video
7 Photos
DramaRomance

In Paris, six people all look for love, despite typically having their romantic aspirations dashed at every turn.In Paris, six people all look for love, despite typically having their romantic aspirations dashed at every turn.In Paris, six people all look for love, despite typically having their romantic aspirations dashed at every turn.

  • Director
    • Alain Resnais
  • Writers
    • Alan Ayckbourn
    • Jean-Michel Ribes
  • Stars
    • Sabine Azéma
    • Isabelle Carré
    • Laura Morante
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.9/10
    4.2K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Alain Resnais
    • Writers
      • Alan Ayckbourn
      • Jean-Michel Ribes
    • Stars
      • Sabine Azéma
      • Isabelle Carré
      • Laura Morante
    • 23User reviews
    • 80Critic reviews
    • 77Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 6 wins & 16 nominations total

    Videos1

    Private Fears in Public Places
    Trailer 1:54
    Private Fears in Public Places

    Photos6

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    Top cast12

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    Sabine Azéma
    Sabine Azéma
    • Charlotte
    Isabelle Carré
    Isabelle Carré
    • Gaëlle
    Laura Morante
    Laura Morante
    • Nicole
    Pierre Arditi
    Pierre Arditi
    • Lionel
    André Dussollier
    André Dussollier
    • Thierry
    Lambert Wilson
    Lambert Wilson
    • Dan
    Claude Rich
    Claude Rich
    • Arthur
    • (voice)
    Françoise Gillard
    Françoise Gillard
    • Speakerine TV
    Anne Kessler
    • Présentatrice émission TV
    Roger Mollien
    • Soldat poète émission TV
    Florence Muller
    • Critique d'art émission TV
    Michel Vuillermoz
    • Architecte émission TV
    • Director
      • Alain Resnais
    • Writers
      • Alan Ayckbourn
      • Jean-Michel Ribes
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews23

    6.94.2K
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    Featured reviews

    hal-234

    silly, pretentious, contrived, gimmicky

    OK, the acting is good, and the camera work is competent, when we're not having to watch the lighting suddenly change for no reason, or when we're not wondering why two people sitting in a kitchen talking are getting snowed on. But the plot is ridiculous. The characters do a lot of talking, but not much else. Two of them allegedly work together in a real estate office, but they never do any work, and aside from one of the other characters in the movie, no one ever comes into their office. I kept wondering how they stayed in business. Two of them are allegedly brother and sister, but the sister is 40 years younger than the brother, and this difference is never explained. And why are they living together? Two are engaged, but there is not the slightest warmth between them, and we are left wondering how the engagement ever happened. Several characters seem to get a personality transplant halfway through the movie. One is always off camera, for no particular reason. None of them seems to have any basic common sense. They are completely unappealing, and therefore we never care what happens to them. The only compensation is the French, which is very clear and simple.
    9MaxBorg89

    A very funny and insightful reflection on relationships and solitude

    Coeurs, the latest achievement of French master Alain Resnais, stands out as one of the finest European productions of 2006, a fact confirmed by the Silver Lion it was awarded in Venice. While the critics and audience at the festival were more anxious to see other films, like The Black Dahlia or INLAND EMPIRE, this small, intimate, bittersweet character study quietly moved towards well deserved recognition, proving that the great New Wave director had lost none of his special touch.

    Like one of his best known films, Smoking/No Smoking, Coeurs is based on a play by Alan Ayckbourn. But whereas Smoking/No Smoking retained its untarnished Englishness, Resnais makes it pretty clear that he's keeping his new work as distant as possible from its literary source: the title is completely different (as the French filmmaker thought Private Fears in Public Places was misleading in regards to the subject), and the story is set in Paris, with the inevitable (and, I might add, quite brilliant) changes in the dialogue that this requires.

    The film focuses on six people struggling to achieve or maintain meaningful relationships. There's the aging Thierry (André Dussollier, funny and heartbreaking at the same time) who has to fight his feelings for his younger assistant (Sabine Azéma). There's his sister Gaelle (Isabelle Carré), who goes out on blind dates every night and always comes back hugely disappointed. There's Nicole (Laura Morante), a frustrated woman who's trying to find a nice apartment whilst dealing with her unemployed and increasingly detached boyfriend, Dan (Lambert Wilson). And there's Lionel (Pierre Arditi, a laconic revelation), a lonely bartender who has to take care of his father, the rude, sex-obsessed Arthur (Claude Rich, heard but not seen). Over the course of four days, these characters will meet and affect each others'lives in unexpected, amusing, but also very touching ways.

    With this masterwork, Resnais proves himself a true auteur, telling us an apparently simple tale of love and longing with a direct, honest approach, from the hilarious beginning to the moving, open conclusion. In adapting Ayckbourn's stage work, he manages the impossible, which is to make the movie look theatrical but not overly bizarre, using subtle, unpretentious tricks: the speaking parts belong solely to the six leading actors (plus Rich's priceless vocal cameo), every single scene takes place indoors (and the locations are always the same), and, most importantly, sequences are linked by a metaphorical snowfall, which gives the film a poetic, almost magical feel.

    Those who thought Closer could have benefited from less swearing and more sympathy for its characters should watch Coeurs. It may not exactly end on a happy note, but at least it doesn't risk sliding into misanthropy. Beneath the apparent pessimism, there's a heart beating. The heart of an experienced director who hasn't stopped to amaze us.
    harry_tk_yung

    A good mix of art house appeal and mainstream entertainment

    Adapted from Alan Ayckbourn's recent (2004) play, this movie has a structure that reminds me of two well known plays. The structure of some 50 short scenes brings to mind Noel Coward's "Cavalcade". Having plots revolving around 6 characters draws an obvious comparison to Luigi Pirandello's "Six characters in search of an author". But both similarities are superficial. "Private fears" is a distinctly different play.

    The interrelationship between the six characters is somewhat random, but clever for this very randomness. These various relationships include real estate agent and client, office co-workers, brother/sister, part-time aged-parent-sitter and employer, engaged couple living together, bartender and familiar client, blind dates. Each character is party to two or three of these relationships. Some of these relationships we see right from the beginning; others evolve right before our eyes. Outwardly casual relationships have subtle intimacy; apparently intimate relationships turn out to be rather casual. The emotional spectrum goes from heart-breaking poignancy to hilarious farce. There is never a dull moment in this movie, (except to those who have a tendency to fall asleep UNLESS there is a car chase, an explosion or steaming sex).

    "Private fears" also offers a good mix of art house appeal and mainstream entertainment. Artsy scenes, not overused, enrich the film throughout: entire scene shot from overhead, montage transformation of a conversation at a kitchen table to the snowy outdoors - just two most conspicuous examples. Nor does the movie shy away from cliché comic situations when then are called for.

    This portrayal of ultimate loneliness in the urban alienation of the City of Lights is brought to the audience by an excellent cast of mostly director Alain Resnais' veterans.
    6claudio_carvalho

    Overrated and Pointless Tale of Loneliness

    In a snowing Paris, six lonely dwellers have their lives entwined while seeking for love: Nicole (Laura Morante) is looking for a three bedroom apartment to move with her fiancé Dan (Lambert Wilson), who is unemployed and has drinking problem. Her middle-aged real estate agent Thierry (André Dussollier) lives with his younger sister Gaëlle (Isabelle Carré) that tells him that party with her girlfriends every night. However Gaëlle indeed spends her nights alone in cafeterias waiting for blind dates that never appear for the encounter. Thierry's colleague is the pious and repressed Charlotte (Sabine Azéma) that loans a videotape with a musical religious show to him. But in the end, Thierry sees her in an erotic dance and he believes she is sending a sign for to him. Charlotte is nursing during the nights the aggressive and nasty father of the bartender Lionel (Pierre Arditi) that attends Dan every night in his bar.

    "Coeurs" is an overrated and pointless tale of loneliness. The cold and snowing Paris is a kind of metaphor to the frustration in the relationship of the uptight characters that are afraid to deliver themselves to their passions. However the hype surrounding this movie increased my disappointment with the melancholic story. The characters are charismatic and likable and it is easy to the viewer to sympathize with them. Nevertheless the gorgeous Isabelle Carré is miscast in the role Gaëlle, since she is younger and younger than her brother and she is so beautiful that I can not understand how she does not succeed in her blind dates. There are good dialogs but the conclusion is too open and frustrating for a 120 minutes running time feature that gives the sensation of "so what?" to the viewer. My vote is six.

    Title (Brazil): "Medos Privados em Lugares Públicos" ("Private Fears in Public Spaces")
    7Red-125

    So near and yet so far away

    The French film Coeurs was shown in the U.S. with the title Private Fears In Public Places (2006). It was directed by Alain Resnais. Resnais directed the brilliant film, Hiroshima mon Amour (1959). (IMDb rating 7.9.) It's hard to believe that 47 years later he would direct this light-weight movie.

    The concept is interesting--three men and three women who live in Paris. All of them know at least one other person, but, actually, all six are connected. There's just one degree of separation between the people who don't know each other. For example, Dan (Lambert Wilson) and his fiancé Nicole (Laura Morante) are looking for an apartment. The real estate agent who shows them the apartment is Thierry (André Dussollier). His sister is Gaëlle (Isabelle Carré), dates Dan after he breaks up with Nicole. However, he's unaware that the real estate agent he met is Gaëlle's brother.

    The key player of the six is Charlotte (Sabine Azéma). She is the pious secretary in Thierry's office, but also has a nighttime job where she cares for Lionel's sick father. Lionel (Pierre Arditi) is Dan's bartender. And so it goes. Incidentally, Charlotte is the most interesting character in the movie, because she has a very dark secret.

    All the meetings (and near meetings) take place in a Paris where it is always snowing. The characters enter with snow on their coats and hats. It's fake snow, so it never melts. It just sits there. I assume that's very symbolic. The snow is an recurring, annoying element.

    Some of the casting doesn't make sense. Isabelle Carré portrays André Dussollier's younger sister. Well, very younger sister. Carré is 25 years younger than Dussollier. She should be his daughter, not his sister.

    All in all, a mediocre movie by a famous director. It has an IMDb rating of 6.9, which is just about right. We saw it on DVD, where it worked well. You might want to check it out, but, then again, you might not.

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    Related interests

    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama
    Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (1942)
    Romance

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Holds the record in Brazil for movie playing the longest in theaters: over 4 years. It was released on July 6th 2007 and remained playing uninterruptedly in at least one theater until January 27th 2012, long after being release on DVD. It started playing again on July 19th 2014, celebrating the reopening of the movie theater that kept it playing the longest.
    • Goofs
      When Charlotte has the tomato soup thrown at her by Arthur, the front of her blouse and sweater have large reddish stains on them. When Lionel returns home and is talking to her, the stains have disappeared.
    • Connections
      Featured in Belas Artes: A Esquina do Cinema (2012)
    • Soundtracks
      Onward, Christian Soldiers
      Performed by Tennessee Ernie Ford

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    FAQ18

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • November 22, 2006 (France)
    • Countries of origin
      • France
      • Italy
    • Languages
      • French
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Private Fears In Public Places (Coeurs)
    • Filming locations
      • Studios d'Arpajon, Arpajon, Essonne, France(Studio)
    • Production companies
      • Soudaine Compagnie
      • StudioCanal
      • France 2 Cinéma
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Budget
      • €12,800,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $134,636
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $14,391
      • Apr 15, 2007
    • Gross worldwide
      • $6,855,294
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 2h(120 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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