Confidences trop intimes (2004): **** out of ****
Directed by Patrice Leconte. Screenplay by Jérôme Tonnerre. Starring Sandrine
Bonnaire and Fabrice Luchini and Michel Duchaussoy.
by Andy Keast
There's something about the idea of going to a psychotherapist that just irks
me. We're at our most secretive when we're around those we trust and love, but
are more than happy -excited even- to spill it all to a complete stranger with
a few degrees on his wall. Others disagree with me vehemently, saying that
it's easier to open up to someone with whom one has no personal connection, and
this is a film that proposes that we may provide our own best therapy. In
Patrice Leconte's "Intimate Strangers," a distraught woman mistakes an attorney
for a psychiatrist, and at their first meeting, divulges to him very personal
details of her marriage and sex life. The attorney deduces that she must have
entered the wrong office (the shrink is a few doors down in their building),
but taken by her beauty, he keeps the deception going. She doesn't know a
thing about him, and the case would be the same had she seen the shrink anyway,
so what's the difference?
A synopsis of the movie makes it sound like a lurid romance -or worse. Lurid
it my be, but it's not a deception that lasts long, because the screenplay has
many surprises buried under the setup, and intelligent characters who both know
what the other is up to. The woman is Anna, played by Sandrine Bonnaire as sad
and self-aware; someone who conveys melancholy while appearing perfectly
composed in front of others. The man is William (Fabrice Luchini), a bag of
nerves (I can only imagine the daily life of a tax lawyer) who never fails to
be beguiled and delighted at his visitor -and it's he who ends up visiting the
real therapist (Michel Duchaussoy). Note how when confronted, he rests his
side against a bookcase, as if trying to hide. The dynamic between the two
supplies the film's psychodrama, and it's clear that Leconte has drawn
inspiration from "Vertigo." The film also has something else: wit. As David
Shainberg was with his "Secretary" two years ago, Leconte is aware of the
absurdity of the film's premise, and approaches his subjects with intelligence
and (yes) class. They reminded me of the neighbors in Wong's "In the Mood for
Love."
This is one of those films that while watching it, one realizes how it could
have gone very wrong in many ways. The directing is masterful: the comedy is
never broad or overplayed, characterizations are subtle, developments are
dramatic and not melodramatic. Patrice Leconte's previous film, "L'homme du
train," also featured strangers who met by chance: two characters from
different worlds who seemingly had nothing in common, but did. One of the
dimensions of that film was the idea that it could have been *any* two people.
"Once ajar, the door to feminine mystery is not easily shut," says the
therapist, who warns that Anna's testimonials could be a mélange of truth and
fiction. William will indeed discover that there is much more to Anna's
pathology than he may want to know. "Intimate Strangers" reveals her secrets
tactfully, humorously, and strangely.
au3480@wayne.edu
arthistoryguy@aol.com
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