Confidences trop intimes (2004)

Confidences trop intimes is a French romantic film drama first released in 2004, directed by Patrice Leconte.  The film stars Sandrine Bonnaire, Fabrice Luchini, Michel Duchaussoy, Anne Brochet and Gilbert Melki.  It has also been released under the title: Intimate Strangers.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Tax adviser William Faber is surprised when, one day, a strange woman enters his office, insisting she has an appointment with him.  By the time he realises what is happening, the woman – Anna – has told him some intimate details about her private life.  It is apparent that she has mistaken him for the psychoanalyst, whose office is further down the corridor in which William works.  Unable to explain the truth, William allows Anna to book an appointment with him for the following week.  Even when Anna realises her error, she insists that they continue their consultations.  William can hardly refuse.  Since he separated from his wife, he has lived a painfully solitary existence and Anna has awoken something in him.  He listens, fascinated, as she recounts every detail of her masochistic love life.  He begins to wonder if she is inventing the entire story and doubts whether she is even married…

After the distinctly bizarre L’Homme du train (2002), director Patrice Leconte returns to more familiar territory with Confidences trop intimes, a dark romantic drama which instantly evokes some of his previous films, such as Monsieur Hire (1989) and Le Mari de la coiffeuse (1990).  With his usual penchant for visual style, Leconte uses film noir lighting and photography to create a sense of mystery and suspense, although it has to be said this is slightly over done and at times this, along with the shaky hand-held camerawork and Hitchcockian score, is more than a little distracting.

The main difficulty with this film is that it seems to be predominantly an exercise in cinematic style, with very little in the way of dramatic intrigue or convincing characterisation.  The nature of the plot guarantees that the film will be repetitive and contained, but Leconte’s attempts to divert us from this are just too obvious and often work against the narrative.   What holds our attention is not the director’s overly meticulous craftsmanship but the compelling performances from his superlative cast (the one area where Leconte is rarely at fault is his choice of actors).  Sandrine Bonnaire (who appeared in Monsieur Hire) is smoulderingly seductive as Anna whilst Fabrice Luchini shows that he is perfectly cast to play the solitary soul yearning for love (obviously an updated kind of Monsieur Hire), straddling a fine line between tragic pathos and self-effacing comedy.  The supporting cast  (Michel Duchaussoy, Anne Brochet and Hélène Surgère) are equally impeccable, making the mediocre script feel a lot more substantial than it really is.

Confidences trop intimes may not be Patrice Leconte’s best film, but it is strangely compelling and seductive, having some similarities with Anne Fontaine’s 2003 film Nathalie…  The two films are similarly structured, both involving one party describing the sordid details of a sexual liaison to another who acquires an unhealthy taste for voyeurism.  Interesting as the two films are, however, neither deals with the subject of voyeurism as effectively and with such emotional depth as Leconte’s earlier film, Monsieur Hire.

© James Travers 2007

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