With nods to Claude Chabrol through its meticulous character development, class consciousness and subtle ratcheting of tension, this slow-burn thriller from the writer/director (novelist Claude Claudel) and star (Kristin Scott Thomas) of I Loved You So Long is at once an incisive portrait of a marriage as well as a policier of considerable skill and invention.
Auteil’s casting brings to mind Haneke’s Hiddenas successful surgeon Paul (Daniel Auteil) finds himself the recipient of the grateful attention of a former patient. Initially flattering, the behaviour soon becomes confusing and eventually threatening. His wife Lucie (Kristin Scott Thomas) is at first supportive but becomes increasingly suspicious of her husband’s behaviour resulting in a chasm opening up between the couple, exposing the previously ignored fault lines emerging in their marriage.
It’s an adult, controlled and involving piece of cinema which secures Claudel’s reputation as a major talent on this, only his second outing behind the camera.
