Anna M. (2007) User Reviews

"Madly" in love

[guy-bellinger · 8/10 · 10 May 2007]

I did not particularly appreciate Michel Spinosa's former movie "La Parenthèse enchantée". As a result I was not particularly keen on seeing his next. But I happened to see the trailer for "Anna M." and I was hooked. I HAD TO rush to a theater: thrills seemed to be guaranteed.

And I was not let down. With this film Spinosa proves he has made tremendous progress (to my mind at least). His hand as a director has become firmer and the subject he has picked this time around is both an exciting and accurate depiction of a psychiatric clinical case, erotomania as it happens. He has also chosen Isabelle Carré, the ideal actress for the role.

The whole plot revolves around an attractive young woman named Anna M. (is "M." a reference to Fritz Lang's accursed "hero"?) who suffers from solitude and depression. After failing to kill herself she is brought back to life thanks to the care of Doctor André Zanevsky. She soon falls in love with him, totally disregarding the fact that the man she shamelessly calls André is happily married and remains totally unresponsive to her advances.

Unknown to the doctor and even to herself, Anna suffers from erotomania and having become fixated on him she cannot be reasoned with any more.

Her behavior -now laughable now extremely dangerous- is very well documented and described. Open your medical dictionary and you will realize that all that is shown on the screen corresponds to what is written in the book, notably the evolution of the disease in four stages: illumination, hope, spite and hatred. Likewise, the interview led by the psychiatrist before Anna is discharged from mental hospital rings true. Just like in real life the therapist tries to find out through a series of questions whether the patient can be regarded as cured or if she is faking. And does it with such empathy, such humanity you would never say the scene is being played by ... an actor!

Of course "Anna M" is not in the least a medical documentary for all that.. The story comes first and the writer/director masters it to perfection. After a half-toned beginning tension soon rises and uneasiness sets in never to release its grip until the end, except maybe during the appeased (although ambiguous) final sequence. The climactic scenes (the attempted murder in the subway, Anna with the two little girls, Anna's relapse) are all duly impressive and call to mind prestigious names like those of Hitchcock ("Psycho" and Roman Polanski ("Repulsion"), among others.

Isabelle Carré must be praised for her interpretation, for she is the backbone of the whole effort. Had she not lived up to the spectators'expectations the film would have been a terrible flop even if it had been good in all the other departments. But there was nothing much to fear from such a talented young woman, who is so committed to her art and who has already proved how varied her abilities are ("Les sentiments", "Se souvenir des belles choses", "Holy Lola","Quatre étoiles"). Wholly immersed in her character she is every inch the troubled heroine, in turns sweet, fragile, mean and wild.

I now look forward to seeing Michel Spinosa's next. Will I be disappointed? Time will tell.

Far from a vanity project on an illness for those wishing to watch, Anna M. is a harrowing; confrontational and often upsetting peak into the world of an Erotomaniac.

[johnnyboyz · 7/10 · 24 April 2011]

Anna M. begins with the titular lead staying on after-hours in a large, expansive, highly decorated library complete with numerous tiers and various places of study for what-not; all the while deeply immersed in her work. She's laying studious claim to her studies so much so, that the entire building appears to just shut down around her; the general ground floor area long since evacuated as afternoon turns into evening which turns into night which causes the building's lights to go out and render the whole area a crepuscular dead zone of objects brought to life no longer by the rays of light which before, gave an odd bronze glow to surroundings. The young woman is still buried into her precise, meticulous, detailed studying, something which the film goes to some lengths to highlight as this calculated, careful and exact person is put across as such. The library is actually the zone in which she works, her skills or overly enthusiastic attitude to her work and the characteristics seemingly required for it coming to leave said place of business before going on to substantially contribute to the morphing of a number of lives outside of it, more often than not for the worse.

Isabelle Carré, here coming to eventually look a little like Julianne Moore with a head-cold as things deepen and worsen, plays Anna: a softly spoken but desperately troubled French woman; a loose canon of mental illness and ill-thought; flitting, desperately, from place to place and from unbalanced instance to instance – all the while destroying or self destroying. She lives at home with her mother and their pet dog, the lack of a father figure or some kind of male orientated presence at the home, if it's true, an element no doubt experts within particular fields would be able to highlight most certainly contributes to the sort of behaviour and attitudes, certainly more broadly linked to that of men, that she has. The mother appears somewhat tepid, even passive at being able to do anything about anything; on another occasion, Anna, in a clean and remorseless blow, comes into contact with the pet dog off in a mechanical and somewhat insensitive manner when her desire to rest takes precedence. Writer/director Michel Spinosa barely holds back, the set of characteristics and general frustration within our Anna certainly on show.

Something is definitely wrong with Anna, whose first act is to step out in front of a moving taxi in a bid for it to run her down upon leaving her place of work after the opening sequences. This brings her closer to a local doctor named André Zanevsky (Melki), the man whom treats her at the hospital after the failed suicide attempt, but whose very treating of her and presence will kick things off into territory just as harrowing. As an initial coming-together, Dr. Zanevsky must intimately feel and explore certain parts of the body that may have been damaged during the contact with the automobile and consequent fall; the man, perhaps the first to have spoken to Anna in months or even years, is immediately the object of her affection and it does not take long for the girl to be smitten. Throughout, the film delicately balances precisely where it is Anna lies in terms of her own mindset; the ambiguity as to whether she is genuinely insane by way of her talk of hallucinations and the apparent fabrications of memories involving other people goes hand in hand with this morbid level of intelligence she carries around with her, something which furthermore allows the film to present her as this conniving, devilishly clever stalker whose methods of thinking and ways of getting closer to her beau tempts us into thinking she's anything but a mindless, thoughtless idiot doing what she does.

The film is a fascinating, and unnaturally engaging piece in its own right; a game of cat and mouse between an already married man whose objectification within the mind of one, disturbed woman whom was the natural victim of procedure following on from her own ill-advised actions, is the core. The film's addressing of sexual frustration, and the systematic dismissing of it as a drive for its protagonist, lies within Anna's ability to flirt and successfully pull a metro worker for a one night stand which does not quench the need to continue to chase Zanevsky. An attractive enough girl, Anna's issues and the film's attitude in regards to wanting to explore something a little more than a bored young woman out to cause a nuisance for herself and others around her, is highlighted to be running deeper here.

The film appears to be one of which was constructed by a man with a grim view of women; not a sexist one, but a view of which is most probably scared or a little weary. Furthermore, Anna's ultimate happiness arriving in the form of what it is doesn't necessarily suggest a stance from a filmmaker highlighting that it is the only way women can be happy; more-over, there are numerous other women in the film whom aren't granted the solution Anna is and appear perfectly functional as is in their respective lives. It would be true to say that most of what unfolds in the film might unfold in mostly any order one would deem fit, it is the manner in which such a tale of such a woman and her antics are told in the escalating fashion which they are which keeps it perennially fascinating. Studious, rather agonising and nary afraid to take on a true-to-life mental illness in the harshest, and often bleakest, of forms as numerous people around that of the sufferer are affected for the worse, Anna M. is a stark and rather oddly fascinating little drama which takes a dart and hits the mark.

In the mouth of madness : when psychological study meets horror movie.

[moimoichan6 · 6/10 · 4 May 2007]

Anna M (Isabelle Carré) is a poor and sick girl : she's lonely, depressive, she has no friends or sentimental life, she's got a boring job at the Fench National Library and she lives alone with her mother, who seems unable to fill the void of her life. So, she naturally tries to kill herself an evening, while taking the dog out. And when she wakes up at the hospital, she had to find a new meaning to her life, and it will take the shape of the doctor who cured her (Gilbert Melki), for whom she'll develop a crazy love fixation : even if it seems obvious that he only fells indifference for his patient for whom he only have professional concerns, she'll convince herself that he shares with her an absolute love. The movie develops wit realism and intelligence this fixation, that slowly become a dangerous mental sickness, and fallows its progression steps by steps, with the seriousness of a psychological study.

To the crudity of this study, that sometimes really penetrates the intimacy of this troubled conscience, Michel Spinosa adds some horror/thriller's touch that wears a double face. Spinosa uses a fantastic tone and even some horror movies figures of style in order to describe the subjectivity of his character (nighmare sequences, deformed frame to underline the sickness of Anna, etc.), but he's also stage some horrific triller scenes, that lead to the most impressive and tense sequence of the movie, where the monstrous character is now in charge of children. The use of horror figures in a traditional dramatic movie is always interesting in the world of french "Cinema d'Auteur", even if it's more and more common (see the recent "Le dernier des fous", in which Laurent Achard imposed a fantastic tone to a classical family study, or "ILS", a french horror movie, supposedly based on real events). And it's nice to see that the mix is quite efficient and that, thanks to the the reflection of the psychological and the horror sides, you're able to clearly understand the madness of the main character.

This description of madness, full of tension, is certainly the great achievement of the movie, but if you're deep in it when you're watching it, it's strange to see how its effects quickly disappear after the screening. Even if I was completely emerged in the movie while watching it, I didn't kept a strong memory of the movie, and it didn't get much impact on me. I think it's partly due to the clinical and cold impression that crosses the all movie, and to the fact that you never really fell anything for the characters. Anna is more like a figure of study, an experimental subject for whom you don't really get any emotion nor compassion, but only understanding, than a really human being. And the Dr. Zanevsky doesn't really exist, except in Anna's mind. Melki's character is just plain and mediocre, and you're never really able to see it through the crazy eyes of his mad lover. That's also why, at the end, despite the original efforts of the movie, I still got the feeling to have watched another classical french little drama.

Intriguing but flawed

[paul2001sw-1 · 6/10 · 28 November 2009]

'Anna M.' is a stylish, chilling portrait of a woman's collapse into mental illness; yet it's only partially successful as a film, in spite of a great performance from Isabelle Carre in the lead role, excellent cinematography and an understated, effective score. This is partially because at times it threatens to descend into a straightforward psychopathic stalker movie, and however nicely this is worked out, it's a plot line made dull through over-use and the fact that the victim, by definition, cannot be held responsible by the viewer for their actions. In my opinion, most interesting films leave the audience to judge the character, which can't be done with this plot line. Cleverly, the film cleverly brings this sub-plot to a premature climax, which turns out to be just a local peak on the overall narrative arc; but that wider story, although more innately interesting, never quite lets us into its secret. The tale begins, after all, with a kind of suicide attempt; what led up to this is never explained, even though it's clearly the root cause of what happens after, as well. For me, 'Anna M.' falls in between a thriller and a character study, with some of the merits of both, but also not without the faults of each genre; a miss rather than a hit, though not without interest.

Flawed Attraction

[johno-21 · 6/10 · 15 January 2008]

I recently saw this at the 2008 Palm springs International Film Festival. This is the story of Anna M (Isabelle Carré), a young and lovely manuscript restorer at the national library in Paris, who develops a fatal attraction to the handsome married Dr. Andre Zanevsky (Gilbert Melki). Anna one day decides to commit suicide by walking into oncoming traffic and is severely injured as a result of being struck by car. While hospitalized she develops a crush on her doctor which upon her release develops into a dangerous delusional disorder called erotomania where she believes the doctor is deeply in love with her which leads to her pursuit and harassment and stalking of him. The film divided into four chapters which represent the four stage of erotomania, Illumination, Hope, Disappointment and Hatred. The four chapters may also represent the film goers four stages of experiencing this film. The premise of the film's story is good and full of possibilities but it ultimately becomes so far-fetched and implausible that it never delivers as either a psychological thriller or a study into mental illness. The doctor can never convince the police that this woman represents a dangerous threat to he and his wife. He is after all a respected surgeon and Anna M. is a woman with a history of mental illness. She just tried to kill herself and at one point in the film her mother recognizes that Anna is losing her grip on reality and comments that "it's happening again" so she must have a history of mental instability even before the attempted suicide. She simply resumes her life after the suicide attempt and as she escalates her harassment of Zanevsky and his wife the police take Anna's side. Anna gets a job as a nanny for tow young girls in the apartment above the Zanevsky's without any references or background checks or employment resumé and immediately begins her final stage of stalking the doctor from her on site vantage point. Carré plays the role in such a one-dimensional way that you are left not really caring about the character and would just like to see her locked up somewhere for along time getting the help she needs. The ending is so ambiguous that you don't know if she's dreaming it up or not and is certainly an unsatisfactory conclusion to the story. Michel Spinosa writes and directs this film that looks good and has a lot of possibilities but falls short. I would give this a 6.0 out of 10.

if you like this...

[missingtth · 21 October 2007]

...then you have to back-up and start watching some Michael Haneke films. His work is brilliant, and makes Spinoza's film seem like a generic French thriller that pales in comparison.

This film requires an immense degree of suspended disbelief which makes it unwatchable in my opinion. Am I supposed to believe the events that transpire in the film? Seriously? This film is really far fetched and the lead actress' performance is grating because of its one-dimensiality. Her obsession is just too much. And it cannot carry the film. No one is that obsessed in this world (okay, almost no one), certainly not over a Doctor??? Come on. Get serious.

If they would have examined her relationship to her mother (like Haneke did in The Piano teacher) in a more thorough manner then it might have helped out in terms of the character development, but these characters just develop in such narrow terms.

I take French Cinema very seriously, but I must admit that this is just average fare. Mediocre at best.

Anna M.

[ocosis · 6/10 · 1 December 2020]

A shy, unhinged woman becomes obsessed with her doctor. Which turns psychotic when her abrasive advances towards him spiral out of control. Anna M is a good psychological drama, with a good turn from Isabelle Carré as Anna.

and just a little more....

[kevinbearman-594-846991 · 9/10 · 28 November 2009]

Overall, I was very impressed with this film, and will certainly delve deeper into this new (to me) area as a result.

However, as expressed by earlier reviewers, the scenario wherein a respected doctor is unable to record a complaint, or at least register an early warning, against a woman with a previous history of mental illness does not ring true.

Most of all, I was fascinated by the parallels drawn with religion as the film drew to a close. The devotion, unwanted, of this woman to her chosen deity vs. the devotion, demanded, to God(s). I am personally an (ex Catholic) atheist, but recognise so many of us must worship.

Please do not let any of my comments detract you from your enjoyment of this truly excellent film.

Madness In Great Ones ...

[writers_reign · 9/10 · 17 November 2007]

... 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.

The French have discovered editing.

[fedor8 · 26 April 2009]

I'll have to admit that French movies have come a long way since the 60s and 70s, a period during which vastly overrated - but occasionally barely competent - filmmakers such as Godard, Bunuel, and Rohmer bombarded the viewers with plot-less, overly political, and usually pretentious easy-to-make, pointless, free-for-subjective-interpretation, fill-in-the-meaning-yourself baloney. France is still the source of many dumb films (but, hey, so is Hollywood), yet the direction has become far more skillful, and French editors have finally left the unemployment lines and started being hired to do their (underrated) jobs. Many of the older French flicks look as if ALL the scenes that were shot were stuck into the end-product...

ANNA M isn't exactly the first movie to deal either with insanity or stalkers, but it's one of the better ones. This is due in large part to Isabelle Carre's charisma and her ability to pull off an ideal, gradual schizophrenic jump from the likable, naive young spinster to the malicious, tunnel-vision-obsessed loon.

The only significant drawbacks can be found around the middle, when the movie drifts slightly into far-fetched territory: the whole nonsense about no-one in the police believing the doctor went into overkill drive for a short while there...

The ending is somewhat problematic. The birth of her child "cures" her, calms her down: I don't buy that.