Tell No One
Directed by Guillaume Canet
For whatever reason, two is the magical number in co-writer/director Guillaume Canet’s adaptation of Harlan Coben’s Tell No One. As a thriller about the deceptive nature of memory, everything important comes in pairs—like two lovers, two murder weapons and two corpses mysteriously dredged up eight years later (for reasons that are never fully explained). Likewise, important events, clues or people of interest are all shown twice successively, as if the audience had already gotten bored and forgotten who or what they were watching.
It’s also a cheap means of reassuring us that Alexandre Beck (François Cluzet) has not lost his marbles and isn’t the killer the police think he is. Eight years ago, Beck’s wife Margot (Marie-Josée Croze) was found murdered on a private lake. Now, after the discovery of two bodies, Beck once again finds himself the prime suspect in her case. That’s when he receives a mysterious email (which we see twice) featuring a link to a recent video (also shown twice) that shows his wife entering a Metro station.
Though Beck is told, “Tell no one. They are watching us,” he blabs to everyone he can. It wouldn’t be a conspiracy if he didn’t have a second opinion to tell him that he’s crazy. Naturally, all of his accomplices and assailants come in pairs. After the breadcrumbs left by the mysterious emailer run out, he flees from two groups of pursuers—the police and a mysterious group of killers looking for Margot—with the help of two lawyers: an unwashed drunk that his wife consulted years ago (Eric Naggar) and his clever, sexy current counsel (Elysabeth Feldman). Also coming to his aid are two female companions—his sister (Marina Hands) and his boisterous lesbian friend (Kristin Scott Thomas)—and two ethnic stereotypes that help him evade the cops (Gilles Lelouche and Joël Dupuch).
Doubling up the players only throws more variables into the mix than is necessary. It stuffs Beck’s chase with helping hands that drift in and out of the picture as needed. This means that at any given time, Beck has at least two hands too many. There’s always someone that has his back, even if he doesn’t realize it: making his search as suspenseful as a tightrope walk over a pit of foam briquettes.
Giving Beck more people to call on for support is not only a dismally anti-climactic way to keep the chase going but more importantly robs him of every opportunity for introspection. He lacks the time alone needed to make his paranoid flight absorbing or to turn him into a truly sympathetic wrongfully accused guy. He’s rarely given the chance to let all the information hurled at him to sink in. When he does have that time, whatever piece of information he’s mulling over, be it email or memories, can be seen twice: unnecessarily reassuring the audience of Beck’s sanity when that should be a matter of opinion.
Likewise, all of the supporting characters are tawdry pulp caricatures that do little more than scratch their heads, bite their nails or muscle their way through whatever obstacle that confronts Beck. Sidekicks, dames and thugs in dime novels never are particularly complicated; but it’s irritating when there are so many of them to whiz through at once. They become another gallery of the usual suspects whose personalities all can be described in one word: lesbian, gang-banger, drunk, cop, killer, macho or crybaby.
While it’s not hard to keep so many names and dangling threads of information in stride, no thought is given as to why that information is being doled out when it is. MacGuffins abound, like when two bodies mysteriously show up out of the blue at a secluded lake, or how Beck’s sister only comes clean with crucial information for no other reason than getting the awful truth off of her chest.
More is thought to be better in Tell No One, making the final twist-filled ending more convoluted than thoughtfully intricate. Beck’s mystery emailer’s final confession is so unnecessarily padded that it rapidly unravels into a jumble of tiresome connections and explanations. All the clues make sense when pieced together—but only on the surface.
Directed by Guillaume Canet
For whatever reason, two is the magical number in co-writer/director Guillaume Canet’s adaptation of Harlan Coben’s Tell No One. As a thriller about the deceptive nature of memory, everything important comes in pairs—like two lovers, two murder weapons and two corpses mysteriously dredged up eight years later (for reasons that are never fully explained). Likewise, important events, clues or people of interest are all shown twice successively, as if the audience had already gotten bored and forgotten who or what they were watching.
It’s also a cheap means of reassuring us that Alexandre Beck (François Cluzet) has not lost his marbles and isn’t the killer the police think he is. Eight years ago, Beck’s wife Margot (Marie-Josée Croze) was found murdered on a private lake. Now, after the discovery of two bodies, Beck once again finds himself the prime suspect in her case. That’s when he receives a mysterious email (which we see twice) featuring a link to a recent video (also shown twice) that shows his wife entering a Metro station.
Though Beck is told, “Tell no one. They are watching us,” he blabs to everyone he can. It wouldn’t be a conspiracy if he didn’t have a second opinion to tell him that he’s crazy. Naturally, all of his accomplices and assailants come in pairs. After the breadcrumbs left by the mysterious emailer run out, he flees from two groups of pursuers—the police and a mysterious group of killers looking for Margot—with the help of two lawyers: an unwashed drunk that his wife consulted years ago (Eric Naggar) and his clever, sexy current counsel (Elysabeth Feldman). Also coming to his aid are two female companions—his sister (Marina Hands) and his boisterous lesbian friend (Kristin Scott Thomas)—and two ethnic stereotypes that help him evade the cops (Gilles Lelouche and Joël Dupuch).
Doubling up the players only throws more variables into the mix than is necessary. It stuffs Beck’s chase with helping hands that drift in and out of the picture as needed. This means that at any given time, Beck has at least two hands too many. There’s always someone that has his back, even if he doesn’t realize it: making his search as suspenseful as a tightrope walk over a pit of foam briquettes.
Giving Beck more people to call on for support is not only a dismally anti-climactic way to keep the chase going but more importantly robs him of every opportunity for introspection. He lacks the time alone needed to make his paranoid flight absorbing or to turn him into a truly sympathetic wrongfully accused guy. He’s rarely given the chance to let all the information hurled at him to sink in. When he does have that time, whatever piece of information he’s mulling over, be it email or memories, can be seen twice: unnecessarily reassuring the audience of Beck’s sanity when that should be a matter of opinion.
Likewise, all of the supporting characters are tawdry pulp caricatures that do little more than scratch their heads, bite their nails or muscle their way through whatever obstacle that confronts Beck. Sidekicks, dames and thugs in dime novels never are particularly complicated; but it’s irritating when there are so many of them to whiz through at once. They become another gallery of the usual suspects whose personalities all can be described in one word: lesbian, gang-banger, drunk, cop, killer, macho or crybaby.
While it’s not hard to keep so many names and dangling threads of information in stride, no thought is given as to why that information is being doled out when it is. MacGuffins abound, like when two bodies mysteriously show up out of the blue at a secluded lake, or how Beck’s sister only comes clean with crucial information for no other reason than getting the awful truth off of her chest.
More is thought to be better in Tell No One, making the final twist-filled ending more convoluted than thoughtfully intricate. Beck’s mystery emailer’s final confession is so unnecessarily padded that it rapidly unravels into a jumble of tiresome connections and explanations. All the clues make sense when pieced together—but only on the surface.
