In this engaging French mystery/thriller, a humble pediatrician named Alex (François Cluzet, whose resemblance to Dustin Hoffman is uncanny) goes on a vacation to his family farm with his wife. One night he hears her scream out in the woods. Rushing to her aid, he is suddenly knocked into a coma and thrown into a lake. His wife's dead naked body is soon discovered. And that's all within the first few minutes!
Eight years later, trying to rebuild his life but still unable to forget that horrible night, Alex gets an email that suggests that his wife is, in fact, still alive. The plot thickens considerably, and before you know it, both the cops and a group of ruthless murderers are after Alex as he tries to uncover the truth.
Tell No One has a colorful cast, a stunning mid-movie chase scene, and plot twists galore. It's one of the few contemporary films that could truthfully call itself "Hitchcockian" in its themes, suspense, and supporting characters. It's definitely an entertaining two hours at the movies.
With a storyline that complicated, however, many questions came up for me after the film was over. This is often a problem with scripts loaded with so many twists. You start asking yourself things like, "Wait a minute – if that happened, then how could this other thing have happened? And why did so-and-so do that? And what about that one character we never hear from again?" I assume the answers are somewhere in the film, as it doesn't seem like the script (written by Canet and costar Philippe Lefebvre, based on the novel by American writer Harlan Coben) is stupid, but I still haven't worked it all out.
Anyway, if potential post-screening confusion doesn't scare you off, Tell No One is a satisfying affair.