Watch A Private Affair For Free

Thanks for the memories!

The first must-see film of the year.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

...but his sad sack adventures across Paris looking for a girl who's been missing for six months can be fairly engrossing at times. My favourite actors show up here: Aurore Clement and Niels Arestrup as Rachel's parents, Bruno Todeschini as a physiotherapist who knew her, Jeanne Balibar and Laurent Grevill as Maneri's ex wife and her new husband, Clovis Cornillac as the owner of the Apolus sex club (and what a fun place it looks too). Thierry Lhermitte will always be the Club Med host from Les Bronzes for me, but he does a pretty good job playing the run down private eye... that's a bad smoking habit he's got. Then there is the always-alluring Marion Cotillard, who needs to do very little to draw viewers into a scene. All in all, it's too long and has too many characters, but it's a lot of fun to watch.

September 2016:Searching for movies online that a family friend was after,I got told about a Neo-Noir he had been interested in seeing for years, that was an early credit for Marion Cotillard. Checking various sites,the only think I could find was a French DVD,with no English Subtitles.October 2017:Whilst getting to place an order with a DVD seller,I decided to have another go at finding the movie,and stumbled on a DVD with English Subtitles…Only on Amazon Canada. Hoping to get the flick right away,I found no seller who would send it to the UK. Mentioning this in passing to the DVD seller,I was happily caught by surprise,when they said that they could order it from Canada,and then send it to me, (shame the DVD could not claim for flyer miles!)which led to me at last discovering the private affair.The plot:After being missing for over six months, Rachel Siprien's mum hires private detective François Manéri as a last roll of the dice in finding her daughter. Learning from the cops that they have hardly any clues over what has happened to her, Manéri begins visiting the clubs she went to and the friends Siprien,which leads to two thugs breaking his knuckles,and telling Manéri to stop checking Siprien's friends list. Catching the eye of Siprien's friend Clarisse Entoven, (who he starts sleeping with) Manéri opens the box to Siprien's private affairs.View on the film:Linking Manéri and Siprien together,the alluring Marion Cotillard (who appears naked a number of times) gives a excellent performance as Entoven, whose free-spirit personality allows Cotillard to give the title a mischievous Femme Fatale glint in the eye. Given the challenge of holding the big twist together, Cotillard does incredibly well in one of her first film credits of bringing the revelation across smoothly, via calmly giving Entoven's free-spirit nature a frosty sting. Rolling Manéri into the case looking like a total mess, Thierry Lhermitte gives a great, rugged performance as Film Noir loner Manéri.Unwrapping the hidden seedy underbelly of the city, Lhermitte strikes Manéri with a grit that bleeds out in every attempt made to stop him,as he tightens his focus on finding Spirien,whilst allowing his attention to drift away,as Manéri becomes more entangled with Entoven. Keeping the private affairs of Entoven and her family closely guarded,the screenplay by writer/director Guillaume Nicloux tugs at the anxieties of Manéri, which are laid to bare in wonderfully odd sex dungeons and the clipped mutterings Manéri catches from each family member.Shooting an arrow into Manéri's view on the case, Nicloux cuts a deeply cynical wound into Manéri with a crystallising ending,that sends Manéri off to drive back into his Neo-Noir pessimism. Cracking Manéri's hands against the red lights of the city, director Guillaume Nicloux & cinematographer Olivier Cocaul rub up a stylised Neo-Noir covered in grime, as Nicloux covers Manéri's investigation with saturated green,blue and yellow tints,that reflect the murky details Manéri uncovers of a private affair.

Despite its clichés -the private is obligatory a divorced man,the plaster on his nose directly comes from Polanski's "Chinatown" ,"une affaire privée" has intellect ,atmosphere and even restrained emotion (Aurore Clement's two scenes are moving ) going for it.The first hour is even intriguing,sometimes recalling some famous works such as "Laura" and more obscure flicks such as "Sylvia" .The director,who is also the writer multiplies the characters at such a speed it's very hard to catch up with the plot,and in the second part,everything seems to fall apart ,well before the implausible de rigueur final unexpected twist (we think here of David Fincher's "the game" and "fight club").But the final cast and credits ,for once is worth a watch :it displays all the characters one by one,with a strange smile on their face ,almost disturbing,as if they were telling us "You' ve been had".Despite of its flaws,"une affaire privée" deserves to be watched.

A moody, sexy French detective story with more than a passing nod to the film noir tradition. We enter the strange murky world of private detective François Manéri as he tries to find out what happened to a missing girl. There's a lot to keep track of, and lots of false leads, but the overall achievement is in creating the story through the eyes of the main character, with all his flaws, than in a cut and paste murder mystery. I found the European very natural depiction of the skilled but all too human detective captivating, in stark contrast to the more formulaic characters of American detective stories.