Intimate Strangers (Confidences trop intimes) | Review

Contemporary French director hits the mark with a story that reaches out and touches someone.

You get a ring at home with someone at the other end of the line asking for a person named Bob. Patrice Leconte’s precise one-act takes an amusing look at what would happen if Bill picked up the phone and pretended he was Bob.

Intimate Strangers is what happens when a knock at a door turns into a conversation that one would normally see between a patient and a professional, except — in this case a tax attorney plays doctor for a while for a slightly distraught woman in need of psychological help. A normal case of mistaken identity ends up ballooning into something bigger. Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire – Est – Ouest) not only opens the wrong door, but opens herself up unloading all her personal baggage onto one lap. William (Fabrice Luchini – Beaumarchais, l’insolent) is completely taken by surprise and left speechless. The one chance encounter leads to a couple more sessions and the narrative sees a moderate ascension where a relationship blossoms into a direction which is shrouded in a simple, slightly arousing mystery.

The Girl On the Bridge and The Man on the Train displayed Leconte’s affectionate treatment for odd pairings — here he laces the twosome with an overcast which is comparable to television soaps. The characters have potential hidden agendas and more is revealed in not what they say, but how the react. Handheld, eye-level shots focus on their body language — the tight shots twirls around the two bringing them together within the frame without any bodily contact. These shots create a tension between the characters; martial problems are voiced but the mentally arousing non-sexual foreplay gives the film a fascinating subtext. Bonnaire is perfectly cast as a neurotic female lead and thankfully Jérôme Tonnerre’s script doesn’t keep her character in the dark for very long, instead a delightful reversal in roles poses the question of who is the mentor? and who is the one in need of therapy?

Comically odd at times, Leconte fills this piece up mostly with a seriously toned energy and it also takes the viewer on a journey that isn’t cast in stone –- an unpredictable cloud overcasts the pic which is maintained throughout. Intimate Strangers are for those who have one time or another felt unsatisfied by a relationship — which means almost everyone and sometimes by lending an ear one can get a deserving fresh start to life.

Rating 3 stars