(2006; Ne le dis à personne, French) A suspenseful thriller envelopes mysterious murders, gradually revealing the truth through an intricate series of inconsistent theories of a whodunit. On the eighth anniversary of his wife's murder, Dr Alexandre Beck (François Cluzet) opens an anonymous e-mail with a link to a video clip of his wife: "Tell no one. They're watching."

Revisiting the case after the bodies of two men are uncovered near Lake Charmaine, where Alex's wife Margot (Marie-Josée Croze) was killed, the Rambouillet police question the pediatrician, raising anew suspicions as to how he could have gotten out of the water if knocked unconscious (in a coma in the hospital for three days afterward) and who phoned in the 911 call. A serial killer, Frank Serton, had been accused of Margot's kidnapping and murder.

Alex shares the cryptic communication with Hélène Perkins (Kristin Scott Thomas), his sister Anne's (Marina Hands) lesbian partner. While paying Margot's parents a courtesy call as he has each year, Alex asks her father, Jacques Laurentin (André Dussollier), a former police captain who alone identified the body, if Margot's face had been recognizable though bruised, battered, and slashed.

Alex's computer is under surveillance, but not by the cops. Capt Eric Levkowich (François Berléaud) of the local Versailles police force interviews Alex, inquiring: "Who is Juliette Langlois?" (Photos of Margot, her face and body marked from severe beating, and Alex's father's shotgun have been located in a safe-deposit box.)

After Charlotte Bertaud, a female photographer who had been a close friend of Margot's, is tortured and killed by a pair of thugs, seeking Margot's whereabouts, the cops discover the murder weapon hidden in Alex's home. Realizing his computer has been compromised, Alex opens another message at a computer café, providing him with instructions for a rendezvous: "Be careful. I love you."

Contacted by his lawyer, Elysabeth Feldman (Nathalie Baye), at the medical clinic while attending to a patient that the police are on their way, Alex flees. An exciting chase ensues (though he smokes cigarettes, the doctor is in good physical condition), concluding when Alex calls on his cell phone the father of a former patient; Bruno (Gilles Lellouche), a gangster, comes to Alex's aid with his gang as a favor for Alex's having done him a good turn three years before. Maître Feldman, however, remarks: "An innocent man doesn't run."

On the other hand, Capt Levkowich doesn't believe Alex is guilty since the theory of his being a murderer is too full of bullet holes. A member of Bruno's gang, Gonzales, taunts Alex, saying that for two months he had been with Margot (while Alex was away at Bordeaux) because she was shielding him, suspected of killing Senator Gilbert Nouville's (Jean Rochefort) son Philippe, a child molester.

Taking the role of Philippe, director/co-screenwriter Guillaume Canet keeps us guessing about the denouement based on the novel by Harlan Coben (who also makes a brief appearance in the film).

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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