Intimate Strangers

An attractive married woman (Sandrine Bonnaire) wanders into the office of a tax accountant (Fabrice Luchini) and, mistaking him for a psychiatrist whose office is nearby, begins blurting out confidences. Their sessions continue even after she belatedly discovers her error, and the accountant, a mousy bachelor, becomes obsessed with her. Like Monsieur Hire (1990), which also paired Bonnaire with director Patrice Leconte, this is both a claustrophobic psychological thriller (paradoxically shot in ‘Scope) and a French bourgeois melodrama mired in prudery (the French title translates as Overly Intimate Secrets). This held me, but I was grateful when it released me. Jerome Tonnerre wrote the script. In French with subtitles. R, 105 min. (JR)

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