Touches You

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

...Italians can do pizza, French can do wine and American can do movies.French movies can be outstanding, but this is not one of them. Intouchables (2011) was delightful and deeply French: I cannot imagine US fim makers producing a movie like that.This mistery movie is dated, to say the least. Huge use of flashbacks, culprit who in the last two minutes explains everything to the public. All of this is obsolete way of film making, at least 50 years old. Mistery movies nowadays are way different and smarter. In this movie I lost my interest after ten minutes. The only reason I kept going was my wife, who anyway lost its interest in the middle of the movie. We were waiting for some interesting twist because of IMDb high rating, but it didn't happen. The movie is boring, shallow and useless. I gave 5/10 because of decent acting and cinematography, but as regards the plot it is 1/10

So very happy I discovered this gem from France."Tell No One" on paper sounds like a typical plot - a man's wife is murdered and he's suspected. It is SO much more than that.The film begins eight years earlier, with the happily married Alexandre Beck and his wife Margot. (Why such an un-French name? The novel takes place in the U.S.)One night, while on the lake, Beck hears the screams of his wife, but before he can get to her, someone knocks him out cold and he falls into the lake.Now it is in the present. A serial killer has always been though to be the killer of seven other people found buried nearby. It is assumed that he killed Margot, though in appearance, it doesn't look like one of his crimes.Beck is a doctor, a pediatrician, and still feels her loss. He is somewhat isolated except for a friendship with Helene Perkins (Kristin Scott-Thomas) and her lover, an accomplished rider. Strange things begin to happen. Two other bodies are found near where Margo was killed, and her case is reopened, as the authorities were never satisfied that Beck wasn't the killer. Then Beck receives an email with a video link, and a time he is to watch it. "Tell No One" twists and turns like the branches of an intertwining vine. You not only won't see anything coming, but just when you think you do, you don't. The suspense is fantastic. Despite all of this, the movie tells its story in a straightforward way so there is no confusion. So often when I see a film, I go to a message board and the threads are "I didn't understand the end," "What was going on..." etc.Beautifully acted by Paul Cluzet, a Dustin Hoffman lookalike, and the rest of the cast, and it's directed by the multi-talented Guillaume Canet who also contributed to the screenplay. Canet, at 41, has a long list of acting credits, directing credits, he has worked as a producer, a screenwriter, and a composer! I'd say he has it all covered.Don't miss this.

Visually this film is a delight, the set pieces are marvellously realistic, and the cinematography manages to be both unobtrusive and impressive. The editing is tight, or as tight as the script will allow, and every opportunity has been taken to lend visual interest and substance to scenes that would otherwise be bland. The actors work hard to inject life into underdeveloped characters, but they are given little opportunity by the script to rise above the formulaic. Tight editing and fluid direction keep the ball rolling although we are as much in the dark as to what is going on as is Beck, the paediatrician hero. Eight years ago Beck survived an attack in which his wife was killed, or so he thought, but now he is receiving emails from her, and other peculiar things are happening. He, and we, would like to know what is going on. We do find out, in the end. But it is as if the writers were so carried away writing action that they forgot that there has to be a story, and that the story has to have a back-story, there has to be a scenario under which all this frenetic and random seeming activity can be seen as serving some dramatic and structural purpose. So they tacked on a lengthy, tedious, and confusing sequence of intercut scenes in which All Is Revealed. Now we know Who, and How, but Why is never convincingly conveyed. Beck is well portrayed by François Cluzet, and Kristin Scott Thomas gives the secondary character of his lawyer the kind of dimensionality that a lead role would warrant. Most of the characters are not really that interesting, and the only one who is becomes collateral damage, to no great dramatic purpose, as an obvious plot mechanism. For this viewer, at least, the film began to go downhill from this point, I no longer cared all that much about the outcome. I made two guesses as to what lay behind the mystery, both wrong. What emerges is in the event, not trivial, but banal. There are holes in the plot, but those I can work with. What in the end I came away with was a sense of hollowness, of waste. The film left me depressed, and I had bad dreams that night. A lot of people will like this film. There is a lot to admire about that way it was made. I just wish they had used a better, properly developed script.

Beautifully shot for a thriller. It's even pretty at times. The actors did pretty good except the super eager and dumb deputy and evil politician master mind, the movie tried to break away from the typical thrillers. It's pretty good movie with strong casting. Having Ms. Thomas in the mix is always a plus for me. But over all I think this movie is perhaps a few decades too late - it tried to make the plot complex for the sake of it and ended up contradicting itself, maybe a plot by a committee? (some mentioned the age difference of the leads, the Latin "killer" alive and well, etc). And I don't believe the male lead has anything on Mr. Hoffman. There's only one Hoffman, period. In all, I think the movie is not a masterpiece by design, but ended up pretty good by execution.