Customer Reviews

Tell No One [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

TELL NO ONE (Ne le dis à personne) succeeds on every level for this viewer. Based on Harlan Coben's novel and adapted for the screen and directed by Guillaume Canet, this is one of those intricately complex French films that is much in the same mode as the 1955 film LES DIABOLIQUES. Nothing is as it appears at first and even when the mystery is explained in what appears to be a systematic, cohesive manner, the 'real story' remains a conundrum. It is a brilliant little film well worth multiple viewings to fully appreciate all of the aspects of the fine acting, cinematography, direction and musical scoring.

In a misty opening we discover Alexandre Beck (François Cluzet) and his beautiful wife Margot (Marie-Josée Croze) only to abruptly be drawn into the murder of Margot and the beating of Alexandre. The incidents are shrouded in mystery and remain so for eight years when suddenly the now pediatrician Alexandre receives an email from the 'deceased' Margot. Alexandre's world is topsy turvy and he begins to share the strange incident with his family - his sister Anne (Marina Hines) and her lover Hélène (a radiant Kristin Scott Thomas), his father, Margot's family...and the police who begin to discover evidence that implicates Alexandre as the perpetrator. Alexandre's lawyer (Nathalie Baye) pits evidence against the police investigators while Alexandre's chief ally in his run from the accusers is Bruno (Gilles Lellouche), the father of a hemophiliac patient whom Alexandre has treated and befriended. The chase is on and the clues become increasingly puzzling until at last the truth of the now eight year old murder and all of the implications of that event unfold.

If there are seemingly holes in the story it is because we, the audience, are never quite sure about the twists and turns of the plot. The acting is superb from this cast of some of France's finest artists, and one of the best performances in the film comes from British actress Kristin Scott Thomas, reminding us that she is one of the most talented and beautiful actors on the screen today! This is a tough little film to follow, but the quality of both the story and the production is first rate. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, October 08

This is a very exciting thriller, in the tradition of American films like The Fugitive, but with a unique edge that makes it distinctively French and deliciously diabolical. It is certainly darker (and funnier) than The Fugitive, but it is no accident that there is an American feel, since it is based on a book by Harlan Coben.

Eight years after his wife's brutal murder, new clues emerge that lead police to once again suspect that Alexander Beck may have killed her. At the same time, he begins to think she may be still alive, and is frantic to find her before he is arrested as a suspect for another related homicide. Director Guillaume Canet keeps you guessing as the plot thickens, revealing bits and pieces of the past as new circumstances help Beck to see that he didn't know his wife as well as he had thought.

The film looks great, with editing and camera work that helps to achieve a perfect balance of subtle tension and intensity. The performances are all very strong -- and there is a surprisingly intense performance by a bit player, a determined and remorseless tall and skinny female assassin/torture expert, that still haunts me. In fact, I would go as far as to say that her performance created one of the most frightening villians I've seen on the screen in a long time -- even more than the performance of Javier Bardem as Chigurh in No Country for Old Men -- because it was just as intense but more plausible. Definitely recommended for lovers of French Cinema, but also for those who think that French films tend to be too cerebral and cannot deliver the thrills. This one hits you in both the brain and the gut.

Says Roger Ebert: "Here is how a thriller should be made."
Says Stephen Holden of the New York Times: "I watched it twice. It was even better the second time."
Says me: "I couldn't agree more with them." Tell No One, even without the quotes, is one of the best thrillers I've seen in a long, long time.

Alexander Beck and his wife, Margot, both much in love, have gone for a bit of evening skinny-dipping in the country. There's a minor disagreement and she dives back in from the float and heads to the shore. He hears her cry out and swims as swiftly as he can after her. When he reaches the small dock and starts to pull himself out, he's met by a baseball bat. While he's in a coma for three days his wife is found dead with severe bruising and cuts, the marks of a known serial killer. But who pulled Beck out of the water? Who called for emergency medical help?

Eight years later Dr. Alex Beck, a pediatrician, is told by the police that the remains of two unidentified male bodies have been found in the vicinity of where his wife was murdered. Then he receives an e-mail on his computer. The attachment shows a woman leaving a crowded exit. She pauses and looks at the security camera. The picture is fuzzy. The scene ends. Beck has never remarried and still is haunted by the memory of his wife. He is almost sure this woman is she. The message in the e-mail says, "Tell no one. They're watching."

The director and co-screenwriter Guillaume Canet has taken the novel by Harlan Coben and, working with Coben, has fashioned a film at least as good as the novel. The film has been crafted with care. You'd best pay attention to every moment. Irrelevant items turn out to be relevant. Assumptions based on how a scene opens turn out often to be not what they seem, but just as reasonable. Canet (and Coben) don't shy away from violence -- there is a memorable woman you don't ever want to displease -- but the violence isn't just for gee whiz show biz purposes. When violence happens, it reminds us to stay alert. Canet takes us all over the place, from Paris slums to society horse events. He has Beck dancing across a highway filled with speeding cars and then hiding out in a dumpster sharing space with garbage and a large rat. The story is just as complicated as Coben's novel (as all his novels are), but -- if you've been paying attention -- all becomes clear. If the cops are after Beck because they think he may have had something to do with his wife's death, it also may be true that others are after him because they think she might be alive. But why?

Helping immeasurably with the interest and speed of the film are the actors. Francois Cluzet plays Dr. Beck, a capable, resourceful man, but no buff Hollywood hero. Cluzet is not an especially handsome lead actor, and that's all to the good. Surrounding him are such fine French actors as Andre Dussollier as his wife's father, a grieving retired senior cop; Francois Berleand as a sympathetic and smart police officer; Nathalie Baye as a lawyer who knows how to deal with district attorneys; and a fine Jean Rochefort, as well as Kristin Scott Thomas speaking impeccable French as his best friend, a wealthy woman having an affair with his equestrienne sister.

Tell No One is an excellent movie. And I hope you'll pick up of a few of Harlan Coben's mysteries while you're at it. He started out with several books featuring Myron Bolitar (whose best friend, Win Lockwood, is not a person to irritate). Try the first one first, Deal Breaker (Myron Bolitar Mysteries). Coben lately has moved into darker themes, such as Tell No One. His latest is The Woods. Coben knows how to create intricate but logical plots and strong characters. He's a first-class writer. His books are much better than the usual thriller-every-year bestseller that some authors churn out regularly.

TELL NO ONE (Ne le dis à personne) succeeds on every level for this viewer. Based on Harlan Coben's novel and adapted for the screen and directed by Guillaume Canet, this is one of those intricately complex French films that is much in the same mode as the 1955 film LES DIABOLIQUES. Nothing is as it appears at first and even when the mystery is explained in what appears to be a systematic, cohesive manner, the 'real story' remains a conundrum. It is a brilliant little film well worth multiple viewings to fully appreciate all of the aspects of the fine acting, cinematography, direction and musical scoring.

In a misty opening we discover Alexandre Beck (François Cluzet) and his beautiful wife Margot (Marie-Josée Croze) only to abruptly be drawn into the murder of Margot and the beating of Alexandre. The incidents are shrouded in mystery and remain so for eight years when suddenly the now pediatrician Alexandre receives an email from the 'deceased' Margot. Alexandre's world is topsy turvy and he begins to share the strange incident with his family - his sister Anne (Marina Hines) and her lover Hélène (a radiant Kristin Scott Thomas), his father, Margot's family...and the police who begin to discover evidence that implicates Alexandre as the perpetrator. Alexandre's lawyer (Nathalie Baye) pits evidence against the police investigators while Alexandre's chief ally in his run from the accusers is Bruno (Gilles Lellouche), the father of a hemophiliac patient whom Alexandre has treated and befriended. The chase is on and the clues become increasingly puzzling until at last the truth of the now eight year old murder and all of the implications of that event unfold.

If there are seemingly holes in the story it is because we, the audience, are never quite sure about the twists and turns of the plot. The acting is superb from this cast of some of France's finest artists, and one of the best performances in the film comes from British actress Kristin Scott Thomas, reminding us that she is one of the most talented and beautiful actors on the screen today! This is a tough little film to follow, but the quality of both the story and the production is first rate. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, March 09

I should thank Roger Ebert for the pleasure of discovering and watching Tell no One. I was reading his review about another European thriller/mystery, the Danish film Just Another Love Story, and Ebert mentioned the French film Tell No One directed by Guillaume Canet and adapted from International bestselling novel by Harlan Coben, as an example of how thriller should be made. It was enough for me to rush the film from Netflix. Two hours long, the Fugitive: French style is everything I look for in a thriller/mystery/crime/drama/love story. Yes, it is a thriller filled with twists, turns, surprises, chases, darkest hidden secrets all the way but now after it is over, I realize that it is in the equal part, the story of love, one of the most beautiful love stories told on screen and also few, not just one, stories of fatherly love and what is it capable of. The strength of the film, IMO, is in letting us know from the beginning that the main character, pediatrician Alexandre Beck (Francois Cluzet who is a spitting image of Dustin Hoffman in his early 40s), is a good man - a loving husband whose love for brutally murdered eight years ago, beautiful Margot never died and a dedicated doctor whom his patients trust completely. When Alex finds himself a suspect in the re-open investigation of his wife's murder and the target of the band of the dangerous criminals, and on the top of all he receives the series of e-mail that indicate that his wife may not be dead, we are already totally involved in his predicament and wish him to find out the truth and to survive. And be happy again. I found the film simply great. It does not surprise me that this French gem received over 90% positive reviews from Rotten Tomatoes and it has made several ten top critics lists. Based on the novel by the same title from Harlan Coben, the film is a non-stop wild ride for all two hours it plays. Moving the plot to France, to the dreamy and deadly country side and to the mean streets of Paris, provides the perfect setting for this story and gave the film this uniquely French look and feel that I personally enjoy very much.

The elements of the plot left some questions unanswered and I am still puzzled about some of them but the movie is so good that I am more than willing to forget about unsolved puzzles. Clever, harrowing, gripping, not rushing but getting exactly where it heads, the film has the most satisfying bitter sweet happy ending I've seen in a long time. I most likely would have hated this ending in a lesser movie but Tell No One deserves and owns it and it is romantic and beautiful. Besides, the book's author was quoted in an interview that the movie's ending was better than his original ending. I am not the one to argue with him.

The cast is first class and includes Canadian Marie-Josée Croze whom we remember from The Barbarian Invasions (2003), English born but living in France for the major part of her life, Kristine Scott Thomas; Francois Cluzet, the winner of Cesar for Best Actor for the role of Dr. Beck; Andre Dissolier, nominated for Best supporting Cesar playing Margot's father; Acting legends Nathalie Baye and one of my favorite actors since the day of youth, Jean Rochefort, and the director/writer Guillaume Canet himself in a small but important role of Philippe Neuville. Highly recommended.

4.5/5

This tense French thriller kept me riveted.
Alex, a doctor, suffers a terrible tragedy when his wife is murdered at a lake where they had been skinny-dipping at twilight. Alex himself was beaten unconscious and the crime was attributed to a known serial killer.
Now, eight years later, Alex receives a mysterious email suggesting his wife, Margot, is alive after all. And the police have dug up two bodies on his property suggesting they got the wrong man for the murder. They reopen their investigation -- with Alex as the prime suspect.
To say too much more would be to give away a tightly-constructed plot that twists and turns unexpectedly, continually keeping the viewer off guard.
One highlight is a superb chase scene -- but instead of the usual highspeed auto chase, this one takes place on foot.
The movie succeeds in painting a hero who is compassionate and sane and irretrievably wounded by the loss of his wife, whom we see was also his childhood sweetheart and the love of his life. Once he gets wind that she may be alive, he's not going to be deterred by anyone or anything in finding her.
We also meet some truly creepy villains.
Highly recommended.

Tell NO One.... A true gift from French Cinema... What a way for French film making to move to the forefront of film making in World Cinema. Under the beautifully layered elements of mystery, intrigue, action and noir, all brought to a contemporary edge by this most creative and imaginative filmaker; is a love story that runs the gambit from the innocence of youth through the trials, terror and tribulations of modern French life lived at its fullest. A MUST SEE film.

"Tell No One," ("Ne le dis a personne"), a French film, a crime/drama/ mystery/suspense/thriller, is based, as is well-known, on a novel written by esteemed American mystery author Harlan Coben. It was first released in Belgium in 2006. It achieved 2008 theatrical release in art houses in the United States, probably because of the presence in the cast of one of everyone's favorite English actresses, Kristin Scott Thomas (Four Weddings and a Funeral). (And what a year 2008 was for Scott Thomas, now based in France, and French-speaking; what with "Tell No One," and its close companion feature,I've Loved You So Long, also French, and triumphantly released here. Anyway, Guillaume Canet directed "Tell," as well as writing the script; he has transposed it, critics agree, seamlessly to France. Most critics also agree that the story has been made into an extraordinarily beautiful film, making France's rural and urban areas vivid on the screen; and that it benefits from extraordinarily good acting, too. And most everyone agrees that it is a good solid thriller that grabs a viewer's full attention and keeps it. As a DVD, the film also offers, wonderfully enough, either subtitles, or dubbed English dialog.

Margot Beck, (Marie-Josee Croze), wife of pediatrician Alexandre Beck (Francois Cluzet), has disappeared during a midnight skinny-dip in a peaceful, lovely country lake eight years previously; she was soon found murdered, the presumed victim of a serial killer operating locally. Yet suddenly Alexandre is getting emails that seem to indicate that she's alive. Scott Thomas, whom, I understand, married a French citizen and took up residence there, plays Helene Perkins, "husband" of Alexandre's sister. Also notable in the cast are veteran French character actor Jean Rochefort ("Mr. Bean's Holiday") as Gilbert Neuville, local bigwig; and the lovely Nathalie Baye (Catch Me If You Can ) as Maitre Elysabeth Feldman. Screenwriter/director Canet plays Philippe Neuville, Gilbert's unpleasant son. Cluzet won a Cesar (the French Oscar equivalent) for his role, as did Canet for his direction.

Well, one reason for the very close attention the film received around here is that we frequently didn't know who was doing what to whom, let alone why. A second viewing might, indeed, have helped. However, the film opens with a country dinner party, of which, I imagine the function was to introduce the characters. And, indeed, of the maybe ten people sitting around that table, five, maybe, were to be major players in the action: five, we were never to see again. Had we had another minute or two with the dinner party, and a word or two of explanation as to whom exactly the characters were, we'd have been a lot happier. But as is so often the case, perhaps familiarity with the book would have helped, too.

Tell No One is a marvelous gem that I would never have been aware but for a tip from a friend in France. Other reviews describe the core plot points and accurately share that this is a very interesting thriller worthy of your time. What I'd like to highlight is the fact the this recently released version of the dvd for American audiences not only offers the film in its original French form (with English substitles available) but also provides the option of viewing completely in English. That makes this terrific movie accessbile to viewers who normally avoid foreign films because they dislike or have difficulty reading subtitles. The ease of showing it to friends and family is what prompted me to buy a home copy. I know I'll want to watch and share this one many times.

I can't add much to the descriptions of the plot, writing, or acting. I will say the understated, surprising, and lovely final scenes make me want to forgive any of the film's shortcomings.

Is this really a love story? What will a man do for his daughter? What will a man do for his childhood sweetheart?

Hmmm... think Hitchcock meets Jeunet.