Truly Dreadful Film

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Lonely, middle-aged tailor Monsieur Hire (Michel Blanc) compulsively peeps out his apartment window into the apartment of the pretty blonde Alice (Sandrine Bonnaire) across the way. She finds out and seems to find it a little exciting. But this opening doesn't give a clue where this spellbinding story of passion and betrayal is headed.Meanwhile, someone has murdered a young girl and dumped her body in the park near where Hire lives. The detective has his eye on Hire, perhaps because Hire is considered a weirdo in the neighborhood. He doesn't like other people and they don't like him (except, oddly, at the bowling alley).The story centers around the emerging relationship between Hire and Alice as they meet and get to know each other. Complicating things is the fact that she is engaged to be married to someone else. The motives behind their words and actions are not clear at first and even seem contradictory.Plot points are doled out slowly at first and the early part of the film requires patience. But towards the end, as a clear picture emerges of what is actually happening, the movie builds to a nail-biting conclusion and as intensely emotional a finish as I've ever seen.The final slow-motion coda put a lump in my throat. If you care about stories of profound love, you should see this.

Eight César nominations including best Actor (Michel Blanc), Best Actress (Sandrine Bonnaire), Best Director (Patrice Leconte), and Best Film; a win for Best Sound, and a Golden Palm nomination at Cannes. Enough to convince anyone that this is a film worth seeing, even if it did not include Bonnaire.Leconte, who has given us films like Intimate Strangers and My Best Friend, never disappoints. His film is a thriller about a man who watches his neighbor undress through her open window, and becomes a suspect when a young girl is found murdered.A cat and mouse game is played with Hire and the police, and a big surprise comes at the end, of course.

If you've ever been in a love triangle, or were kind to someone who loved you but you didn't really love them in return, you'll appreciate the sad dance of the three main characters in this film. A young man and woman are lovers, and she is watched by her neighbor, the unpopular Mr. Hire, black sheep of a Paris near-suburban nabe. They begin a friendship, and even a relationship of sorts, while a cop tries to pin the murder of a young local girl, also an odd duck, on Mr. Hire. Not wanting to spoil the story for you, I won't say more, except to say that the slow parts are tolerable if you know in advance that this is a very thoughtful, haunting movie and you've got to be a little patient for the wonderful reward, which comes right at the end. Very pretty music, beautiful colors and details, lots of sad little moments that remind you of the loneliness of daily life. I wouldn't actually recommend this to most people. I don't think they'd tolerate the lack of Hollywood flash. If you're smart, you'll watch it though. I got it on DVD at a public library and wish I could see it on a big screen, though the DVD images are very lovely.

Patrice Leconte is one of my favorite French directors. His films seem to be be very similar in that they are intense character studies of the two central characters. My favorites are Girl on a Bridge, Man on a Train, and this, one of his earliest dramatic efforts.This film was my introduction to Leconte, and I have seen it 3 or 4 times over 10plus years. It never fails to engage. The acting is fantastic, especially Michel Blanc as the lonely man, & Sandrine Bonnaire, but also minor parts such as Andre Wilms as the police inspector. Everything is near perfect, camera work, editing, the pacing, the music, as other posts have well-articulated.Coincidentally, I had just previously re-watched Intimate Strangers, another more recent Leconte film with Sandrine Bonnaire. I had forgotten she was the Femmma Fatale in Mr. Hire. It was interesting seeing her in these films, as they are about 15 years apart. It is another good role and performance from Bonnaire, but definitely lighter fare compared to Mr. Hire.