Thursday, December 4, 2014

Tell No One



France has always been known for its compelling and innovative film tradition. Most of the modern cinematic movements were born in France. French movies never fail to engage me; be it a drama or a thriller or a horror movie, they always carry that extra dynamism in it which satiates the craving that the audience feels within. Tell No One has been branded as one of the most gripping and fascinating French thriller movies in the recent years. Directed by Guillaume Canet, who is known for his roles in movies like Love Me if You Dare (one of my all-time favourtites), The Beach, The Last Flight, Tell No One keeps the audience enthralled with its sharp twists and turns in the tale.


The film begins in the most languid way possible. It starts with a group of friends gathered together in a summer cabin in the woods, enjoying wine and weed and mindless babble in general. Among those gathered are Alex (Francois Cluzet) and his wife Margot (Marie Josee Croze), Alex’s sister Anne (Marina Hands), her partner Helene (Kristin Scott Thomas) and a few of their other friends. Lazing away your time in the summer is the ideal thing to do, if you happen to own a secluded cabin in the woods. Alex and Margot do exactly that and goes skinny dipping in the nearby lake, reminiscing their childhood days. But all good things must come to an end. The couple has an argument and Margot swims ashore alone, leaving behind Alex, a little bewildered on the small raft in the middle of the lake. Alex hears a muffled scream and he too hurries back ashore, only to be greeted by a blow on the head which renders him unconscious and lands him in a coma for three days.

Fast forward to eight years, Alex is still mourning his wife, while practicing as a paediatrician at a Paris hospital. When two bodies are discovered near the same lake where Alex and Margot had gone swimming eight years ago, the past he had refused to bury reaches out to him. Alex becomes the obvious suspect to his wife’s killing and the police begin persecuting him. In the meantime he begins to receive anonymous e-mails which lead him suspect that Margot may not be dead. In his bid to uncover the mystery of his wife’s murder he becomes a target for both the police and a hired gang who want to keep the secret buried at all costs.

There is a particularly thrilling chase sequence through the city. It takes Alex through Clignancourt, the labyrinth of the antiques market and finally onto the mean streets of Paris where he seeks out help from an unlikely source. It is a marvelously photographed scene, taking the audience too for a run around the streets of the French capital. 

Tell No One revels to the audience each clue to the mystery patiently, without making the audience groan with impatience. Canet blends the movie with flashbacks and the real time events seamlessly when explaining the mystery. The movie takes you for a well-paced journey, whose destination is not disappointing at all; it is deeply satisfying and logical.

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