Intimate Strangers - Cool Movie Alert!!

Picked Intimate Strangers up to watch in the weekend & was very pleasantly surprised. It's directed by Patrice Leconte, who also directed one of the most enjoyable French films I've ever seen - The Girl on the Bridge (which is about a knife thrower - Daniel Auteuil, who comes across a depressed young woman - a luminous Vanessa Paradis, about to commit suicide by throwing herself off a bridge. The knife thrower offers her a job as his assistant reasoning that it might be a win-win situation for both of them. It's brilliant.)

Anyway... Intimate Strangers isn't such a black comedy as that one. It concerns William (Fabrice Luchini), a staid tax accountant specialising in messy divorce cases, who is visited at his office/apartment by Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire), an attractive woman who has mistaken his office for that of the psychotherapist down the hallway. Since she's there to talk about her unhappy marriage, William thinks she's just unloading & doesn't realise the mistake until after her visit.

In fact, even when Anna realises her mistake, she finds she values their meetings so much, that she continues to visit.

In turn, William is captivated by Anna & lives for their appointments. She becomes an agent for change in his life - William lives in & works from the apartment & office which was owned by his father, who was also a tax accountant. In fact, there is nothing of William in the place, his secretary even, was his father's, he has kept his parents' bedroom just as it was when they were alive. William grew up in the place. When Anna asks him who a picture on the wall is of, he confesses he has no idea - someone his father knew he presumes. The picture is gone by the time Anna next visits.

William consults the psychotherapist down the hallway about the situation & finds himself not only acting as the Doctor's proxy, but the subject of analysis himself. I found these scenes highly amusing, the doctor is a dry fellow who manages to extract either a consultation fee, or lunch, from William every time

Despite the salacious sounding title, there is no sex or nudity, the intimacy refers to the conversations they have.

Do by all means, check this out.