Tell No-One (Ne Le Dis A Personne) [DVD]

'Tell No One' (called 'Ne le dis à personne' in France) is the French film adaption of the bestselling stand-alone novel from Harlan Coben. The film begins when Alex Beck and his wife and long-time love, Margot visit the Beck family lake house for their 13th anniversary. During a late night swim in the lake Alex and Margot are attacked and left for dead. A few days later Margot's beaten body is found.
Eight years later and still struck with grief and heartache from the death of his wife, Alex receives a mysterious e-mail with a link to a webcam where his wife appears to still be alive. The email instructs him to Tell No One, leaving Alex wondering if his wife is still alive and he is now also a main suspect for some other bodies found at the lake and possibly also for his wife's apparent murder.

This is an excellent adaption of one of the best thrillers I've ever read and the French setting does not affect the story at all (the book is based in America), in fact it makes it better. The subtitles did put me off at first but once I was 10 minutes or so into the film I didn't even notice they were there. There's lots of plot twists and plenty of action and suspense. The characters are all played perfectly to the book's counterparts and the story is absolutely spot-on. My only disappointment really was that because I had read the book I already knew what was going to happen next.

Overall this is a perfect adaptation and is one that both fans of the book and thriller movie fans too should love. Highly recommended.

TELL NO ONE is a complex thriller cum poignant love story. Canet employs typical European tropes to produce a piece of nicely understated cinema that neatly avoids Hollywood excesses. We follow a grieving man's descent into turmoil when his long-dead wife appears to make an enigmatic reappearance. The small-scale action is always impressive and the bursts of violence shocking in their realism. The actors are equally effective at portraying everyday, believable characters placed in extraordinary circumstances. My only criticisms are that the plot is perhaps too convoluted and the resolution somewhat implausible. That said this is a successful puzzler that will keep you guessing and entertained throughout.

Tell No-One turns out to be a rather good French thriller and a distinct improvement on actor-director Guillaume Canet's first directorial effort Mon Idole. The early overhead shots of a couple driving through the countryside summon up echoes of Red Lights, Harry, He's Here to Help and The Vanishing in particular (though the film doesn't really match up to them, at least his influences are impeccable) as it sets up the back-story that sees Francois Cluzet's wife murdered. Fast forward eight years and the good doctor is still suspected by the police, especially when two bodies are unearthed near the murder scene that threaten his alibi. And then there's an email he receives with what looks like live footage of his very much alive wife...

There's a good supporting cast - a mostly excellent Andre Dussolier as the antagonistic father-in-law, Jean Rochefort showing once again that he's a much better actor when he doesn't dye his hair to look younger, Nathalie Baye as a razor-sharp lawyer, 36 Quai des Orfevres director Olivier Marchal as a vicious hood and even a less-autopilot-than-usual Kristin Scott-Thomas (maybe she should just stick to French-language parts?) - and it's a surprise to see Luc Besson's Europa Films making something so bourgeois that doesn't involve free-running or martial arts for a change, although there is one excellent chase sequence and a vicious female thug to keep his core constituency happy.

If it has a problem - apart from one credulity-straining moment near the end regarding motivation that isn't so much a plot-hole as the Channel Tunnel - it's that at the end of the day, it's JUST a thriller. There aren't enough lingering questions throughout the movie or any real attempt to create doubt as to whether the hero may really have murdered his wife as the police and media still suspect. The twists are satisfying enough but no great revelations, and it's a disappointment that it finds itself forced into an Irving-the-Explainer ending where the plot is explained at gunpoint. Yet despite the lack of depth, it's a satisfyingly well-executed thriller, and if that's enough for you, you could do a lot worse with two hours of your time. Oh yes, and the eagle-eyed can spot one of French producer Christophe Rossingnon's sporadic blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos as a cop.

The two-disc DVD offers a good selection of extras: 20 deleted scenes (but not with the optional commentary listed on the French DVD), a 55-minute making of documentary, out-takes, brief soundbite interviews with Guillaume Canet and Kristin Scott Thomas, UK trailer, the last takes of the various key players on the film and, as an Easter Egg, hair and makeup tests and snippets of random onset footage totalling some 8 minutes. You'll have to be patient if you want to see the latter since they can only be accessed after leaving the main menu on disc two playing for a couple of minutes, after which a message will appear on the in-tray above the Play All option. There's also an earlier short film directed by Canet, I Can't Sleep as well.

The disc has a decent 2.35:1 widescreen transfer, but it's a bit irritating that the unremoveable English subtitles appear in the picture area rather than in the black border underneath.