In the Shadow of Iris

This has all the makings of a great suspenseful movie, but the way it's presented is confusing & hard to follow. Not a complete waste of time but leaves me feeling disappointed.

A Paris banker's glamorous wife seems to have been abducted. What has that to do with the struggling garage mechanic? The plot is unveiled through a fairly confusing sequence of apparently disjointed scenes and flashbacks which eventually begin to make sense. The actors - Romain Duris as the mechanic, Charlotte Le Bon and Jalil Lespert as the banker play their parts well.

Other reviewers have said there are holes in the plot, but I'm not so sure. It doesn't help that all French people apparently look the same: tall, dark-haired... All the men have beards. I hoped in vain for somebody who might be blond - or non-white. I've even watched the beginning of the film back through and I think everything does hang together - or near enough anyway. It is just the pace of events - some happening off-screen or presented out of order - that leads to confusion.

And, of course it's a French film - in French. This also means we aren't afraid of a little nakedness here and there - or S&M for that matter - wherever they can be worked into the plot. Not so much though as to get in the way of the story.

The result is a dark and atmospheric thriller which is worth watching whether you worry about it making complete sense or not.

Still not sure what really happened and not sure who planned the kidnapping nor who was kidnapped.

But still worth watching a master film maker at work. Just sat back and enjoyed the ride. Classic Hitchcock styling.

An extra something in form of twists, turnings, romances, sex, fantasies, criminal minds, greed, fraud every thing knitted perfectly keeping the entertainment fabric intact. Very beautiful heroine. Bankers wife is disappearing, kidnapped? framed? Who is framed? Guessing game director plays with us. Succeeds in the play Surprise elements keep you shocked through out the film. Though French Language Dialogues were appreciated by subtitles help only. The performing actors did splendidly convince every move conveyed without causing much confusion. One after another as we expect in a Romantic Thriller and Suspense Movie nicely done by balancing with Sex fantasies perversions bad manners using the criminality to create a new crime.

I won't go into all the holes in "In the Shadow of Iris," a French film from 2016. They are well covered in a preceding review.

Romain Duris stars as the beleaguered Max, who comes under suspicion when the wife of a businessman disappears, apparently kidnapped.

I won't say anything else about the plot. Have you seen it before? Yes, but others in the same ilk were nowhere near as confusing. The flashbacks seem way out of sequence. It all comes together in the end, though.

Charlotte LeBon is gorgeous with a figure to die for and we do see a lot of it. This movie is French, so there is sex, including S&M all over the place.

Most of the drama comes from Duris, and he's excellent. The rest of the cast is good: Jalil Lespert, Camille Cotin, Adele Bencherif, and Helene Barbry.

Strange and dark, it will remind you somewhat of Hitchcock. But he was easier to follow.