... should not unwatched go. Shakespeare came up with that line some 400 years ago yet he might have been referring to Isabelle Carre's tour de force in this movie. Carre IS without doubt a Great actress and seems to have made a speciality out of sickness; her portrait of a young woman stricken with Alzheimer's in Zabou Breitman's Se Souvenirs des belles choses was unforgettable and it would have been unthinkable had any other actress copped the Best Actress Cesar that year. In Anna M she does it again but this time without the self-awareness of her character in Se Souvenirs. Okay, we can't drag the story into a strong light less the flaws hit us in the face - for example a woman like Anna would never in a million years secure a job as a nanny to two young girls seemingly without a single reference and based on a five minute interview, nor would a locksmith be prepared to break into an apartment on the say so of a barely plausible young woman claiming to live there. We're prepared to overlook this sloppy writing solely because the performance of Carre IS so towering, so majestic.
We know that Americans don't do irony but can we, I wonder, say as much for the French; in A la folle ... pas de tout Isabelle Carre played the wife of doctor Samuel L Bihan who was stalked by a deranged Audrey Tautou, convinced he was in love with her; in Anna M Carre plays the stalker and Anne Consigny has Carre's old role as doctor Gilbert Melki's innocent wife. The films even share a final moment when in each case the seemingly 'cured' leading lady shows the audience that this is far from the case. Tautou is, of course, a fine actress but Carre is a Great one who gives a ten out of ten performance here, only the sloppy plotting mentioned above drags the rating to nine out of ten.
We know that Americans don't do irony but can we, I wonder, say as much for the French; in A la folle ... pas de tout Isabelle Carre played the wife of doctor Samuel L Bihan who was stalked by a deranged Audrey Tautou, convinced he was in love with her; in Anna M Carre plays the stalker and Anne Consigny has Carre's old role as doctor Gilbert Melki's innocent wife. The films even share a final moment when in each case the seemingly 'cured' leading lady shows the audience that this is far from the case. Tautou is, of course, a fine actress but Carre is a Great one who gives a ten out of ten performance here, only the sloppy plotting mentioned above drags the rating to nine out of ten.