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By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The tax lawyer mistaken for a psychiatrist ended up healing his "patient" by just listening, not judging, and by being there for her. Having some knowledge of psychotherapy, this impressed me. The real psychiatrist was giving Faber advice about how he should "treat" the woman, but in the end Faber followed his own instincts. The two main characters were fascinated by each other and this was clear, but they didn't express their attachment in a conventional way. I found this movie compelling because it was difficult to anticipate what would happen and the characters seemed real. The impact of real loneliness and what it makes people do was well shown. I was also pleasantly surprised at how the lighting, the sets and the general mood lightened as the film went on, echoing the more optimistic outlook that Anna developed. It was encouraging to think that by sharing intimate problems, it is possible to work through them, even if the other person only listens and doesn't offer solutions.

Immediately after watching this film, I was (unusually) not inclined to put my views to paper. I think I was vaguely disappointed and felt the film too inconsequential. On reflection, I have a fond feeling for it and suppose that my initial reservation was partly that there seemed so little to it. A woman goes into talk about herself to a psychiatrist and accidentally goes into a tax advisor's office instead. Nice idea but where does it lead? Well, dramatically it doesn't send us off into a great labyrinthine storyline but there is plenty to stir the grey matter and plenty of amusing moments along the way. Very good and likable performances by the two leads and good secondary ones from the elderly secretary, who really doesn't approve and the psychiatrist she was supposed to see, who also really doesn't approve! He does however make the inspired comment that the two men are perhaps not that far apart as they both cater to those who are coping with what not and what to reveal. Not so bad after all and well worth a watch.

Patrice Leconte is fascinated by offbeat, enigmatic, eccentric relationships. Most of all, he likes to film quirky love stories. "Monsieur Hire" (1989), was adapted from a Georges Simenon novel about a forlorn voyeur who is obsessed by a beautiful young woman he watches constantly from afar. "The Hairdresser's Husband" (1990)is the story of a drifter, a man with a passion for women barbers that began in childhood, who finally fulfills his dream.In "The Girl on the Bridge" (1999), a down and out carnival knife thrower and a striking young woman save each other from suicide. And in "Felix and Lola" (2001), another carney with dubious prospects is attracted to a seductress with questionable loyalties. Even in "The Widow of St. Pierre" (2000), arguably his best film, although the story focuses to a degree on the connections between two men, their tie owes its existence to the more substantive relationship each has with the same woman.Certain themes keep resurfacing in this corpus. The men are always middle aged, shopworn by responsibilities, personal habits or life itself. The women are attractive, sexy, mysterious and bold. More bold than the men, who tend toward reticence and inhibition. The women also seem more influential, if not stronger. They are able to discern and open up closed places within the psyche of these men, while at the same time the women remain enigmatic to their devoted consorts. A sexual relationship seems less important than the man's fascination with the enigma of the woman, and her ability to evoke hidden aspects within the man.Now we have Leconte's latest offering, "Intimate Strangers." The story revives all the familiar Leconte themes. It even stars Sandrine Bonnaire, who also played the young woman that so captivated M. Hire in Leconte's film 15 years earlier. Here she is cast as Anna, a dyslectic, depressed, mysterious and powerful Parisian beauty who seeks psychiatric help for marital troubles.On the day of her first appointment with a psychoanalyst, she gets the directions to his office wrong and ends up spilling out her problems to an upscale tax accountant, William Faber (Fabrice Luchini, a French comedian), who at first mistakes her for a new tax client. Her husband Marc has withdrawn emotionally from her, Anna tells Faber; he refuses sex or affection. She wants help to restore their former harmony.The plain, fastidious Faber is so retiring, surprised, and spellbound by this lovely woman, that he cannot collect himself enough to stop and redirect Anna, who pretty much runs the conversation and ends by asking for a second appointment, which William reflexively consents to. He tries to square things at this second meeting, but Anna dismisses his claim not to be a doctor by saying she is well aware that not all analysts hold doctorates. After she leaves, Faber dashes off down the hall to consult the real analyst about what to do now. These doings set the stage for an amusing romantic comedy. It's one that takes a few good natured pokes at psychoanalysis. But as events unfold, one might easily conclude that this story could represent an analyst's most enjoyable fantasy, a therapist's deluxe wish fulfillment: having your patient and helping her too, while getting all the good lines, the fees, immunity from ethics charges, and a free lunch into the bargain. My rating: 8/10 (B+). (Seen on 08/17/04). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.

Patrice LeConte's narrations always rely upon the loneliness of his characters and the complicated, hard-won way they connect with and comfort each other. In "Man on the Train" and "The Hairdresser's Husband," the incomparable Jean Rochefort plays the more outwardly gentle, hopeful and whimsical character, trying to establish common ground with his more explicitly troubled and fatalistic counterpart. Those two films end tragically; "Intimate Strangers" permits a more hopeful outcome. The character played by Fabrice Lucini--counter to the otherwise well-expressed views of TrevorAclea--offers continuous surprises with the unexpected expressiveness of his humble accountant's body and face. Look for him dancing in front of the mirror to Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour"; and consider his expression watching a former mistress walk away in the rain."Intimate Strangers" revolves around an interplay of honesty and concealment that will be familiar to anyone who has worked at being a couple. Some characters demand a fraudulent supremacy based on dependency, domination and sadism rather than the balance of power based on honesty, vulnerability and respect that the two main characters--and most of us--need to achieve intimacy. In this wonderful film, full of layered dangers and credible acts of courage, LeConte continues his masterful and immensely watchable exploration of the need and the fear of intimacy. The outcome creates an exhilaration absolutely rare in film, and absolutely admirable.