Having written, directed and even taken a small role in one of the best thrillers in recent years, Ne le dis a personne, Guillaume Canet settles for the lead in yet another fine French thriller with more twists than the tornado that carried Dorothy off to Oz. It's difficult to describe the plot in too much detail so suffice it to say that Canet plays a guy who never knew his father then one day out of the blue he gets a phone call from a guy who not only claims to have known the father but is also in possession of the late man's ashes which he offers to Canet. In a parallel story line cop Josie Balasko is working a case thirty years earlier in 1975 and if that doesn't whet your appetite - you may remember Balasko has already played a great cop in Cette femme-la - nothing will. There are also some other tasty actors around such as a bearded Thierry Thermitte looking bizarrely like Spike Milligan, Jean Rochefort and Marie Gillain as Cantet's wife. Gillain has another film in the salles this week in which she is blonde as against her brunette here though she doesn't need peroxide to switch from drama to romantic comedy given that she's a fine actress which is more than can be said for Vanessa Paradis who is also on hand looking like forty miles of bad road. This is a fine thriller which needs to be seen more than once.
Review of La clef
