I Love You. They're Watching.

Tell No One
2006. Dir. Guillaume Canet.
Stars Francois Cluzet, Marie-Josee Croze, Jean Rochefort.

Tell No One is a French Hitchcock-style thriller about a man named Alex (Cluzet) who's wife is killed one summer night. He is suspected of the murder, but a notorious serial killer takes the blame instead. Eight years later, events occur that cast suspicion upon Alex once again, while at the same time he begins to believe that his wife was never really dead in the first place.

This leads to a labyrinth mystery involving Alex's friends and family, and his wife's family as well, revealing just how connected they all are. The problem is that the film never really sets up the connections; rather, every time a clue is given, the film waits five minutes to tell you who a character is so that you can understand the connection. This may be ingenious to some, but I found it annoying, as the film was impossible to properly follow.

Everything leads to the last 15 minutes of the film, where the film ties all the loose ends together by introducing a couple of extra character connections, lest there be any plot holes left behind. Again, some critics have said the film is almost airtight in this regard, but I found it cheating. Plus, I spotted a fairly large plot home, in invisi-text below (highlight the spoiler below with your cursor if you want to read it):

BEGIN SPOILER

Alex's wife was told he was killed, and that is why she chose to leave and hide. She comes back though, because she found out he was still alive because of the investigation resuming being in the newspapers. However, after her "death", he was a prime suspect, so that would also have been in the newspapers, and she would have found out right away that he was still alive.

END SPOILER

Overall, I thought the film was trying to be too clever for its own good, and cheated its way out of explaining things.

2 stars. Saw with Steph at the Bytowne.