I find that unlike most moviegoers, I sometimes enjoy not knowing what is going on in a movie. If you are one of those types that enjoy turning to your date or buddy at a movie and explaining loudly, and much to the ghastly annoyance of the people within three rows of you, what will happen next, you are out of luck this time. You won't have a clue as to where the next scene might go, but if you are one of those buffoonish know-it-alls, I suppose that that will only make you do it more than usual as you to try to recover from the battering plot twists that writer-director Guillaume Canet throws at you in "Tell No One". The only easy scene to predict is the final one but by then even I was happy to not be tossed across the theater again.
This is a very difficult film to follow without paying incredibly close attention. Scorecards should be handed out before every performance so that we can all write down who is who and what they are doing and have done so far. Despite this maniacal joyride, "Tell No One" is glorious fun. Considering that the story concerns murders and assaults galore, told and re-told, Canet maintains a great balance between drama and some very light moments where we get to catch our breath. And when I say moments, I mean just that. By the time the grin hits your face it's back to the breakneck pace of action and intrigue.
Dr. Alex Beck (François Cluzet), a pediatrician who bears an odd resemblance to a young Dustin Hoffman, lost his wife to murder eight years earlier. He was the primary suspect before someone else was finally caught and convicted. Even though his name was cleared, some still wonder whether in reality they got the wrong man because there are still some details that just don't add up in Beck's alibi but it's not a front-burner issue for anyone, so it has long since faded away. It is rekindled when two buried bodies are unearthed on the doctor's vacation property, the very same place where his wife was found dead. The police are back at him and they are considering re-opening the inquest into his wife's murder, as well.
Through the use of multiple flashbacks, not all of them in fact true, Canet weaves, unweaves and weaves some more, a tale so twisted into itself that it is almost an irritant. I didn't find it to be that but would have no quarrel with someone of that opinion. In addition to the discovery of two more murder victims, Beck receives mysterious emails from an anonymous source. They contain links to a video that appears to show his wife alive after she was murdered. Canet leads us back and forth so we cannot tell whether what we are seeing is real or doctored but Beck is convinced that his wife is alive and he is determined to find her.
At the same time that Beck is trying to hunt down his wife he is also trying to find who is sending him these emails. Meanwhile, more evidence keeps popping up that tells the police that not only did Beck murder his wife but he is on a killing rampage. The police close in on Beck and right before they nab him he escapes out a window. What follows is a foot chase scene that rivals the car chase in "The French Connection". It is brilliantly shot with handheld cameras and it is ultra convincing.
The supporting cast, including Kristin Scott Thomas, François Berléand and Gilles Lelouche as Bruno, all do an excellent job here. Bruno first turns up as a very minor character near the beginning and he appears to be a throwaway but he turns up later as an integral part of the action and also provides comic relief even while committing violent acts. Bruno and Beck provide us with an odd point/counterpoint of character and station in life but they are bound together by circumstance and by a debt that Bruno feels he must repay.
The plot keeps churning out little clues and tossing out red herrings furiously. By the time we learn the real truth, the audience is as exhausted as Beck. For most of "Tell No One" I thought I might be watching a masterpiece. By the end it falls short, but not by all that much.
