Tell No One

I had some trepidation taking another look at Guillame Canet’s Tell No One. I’d liked it a lot when it was one of the year’s “hot” art-house titles in 2008, but it wasn’t a film that lingered in my mind. Nor was it a film that was much mentioned after its window of exposure—and there wasn’t a great deal being said about Canet either. My one reservation about Tell No One lay in the fact that its greatest appeal lay in being plot-driven, and films of that nature often don’t hold up on a repeat viewing. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it actually did hold up pretty nicely. In 2008, I summed it up by saying, “[The] film tells the story of Dr. Alex Beck (François Cluzet) and his wife, Margot (Marie-Josée Croze, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). After the couple has an argument on a lakeside pier, Margot swims away to shore—only to be attacked (offscreen) and apparently murdered. Alex is himself injured, and spends several days in a coma. Eight years later, two bodies—one in possession of a key to Margot’s safe-deposit box—are accidentally unearthed on property adjoining the Becks’, causing the case to be reopened with Alex as a prime suspect. At the same time, Alex starts receiving e-mail communications—including the phrase, ‘Tell no one. They’re watching’—that are purportedly from Margot, along with a video link that shows her alive. … All in all, Tell No One is a wonderfully entertaining, occasionally very funny, always-involving thriller that never insults your intelligence. Exceptionally well-defined characters (nearly every person seems ‘real’) played by actors up to the job of bringing them to life, along with exciting, stylish direction, take the film into the realm of a must-see offering.” That strikes as still being a pretty fair assessment. See full review here: http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/tell_no_one